Fall 2023 · Vol. 52 No. 2 · pp. 168–170
Book Review
Science-Engaged Theology
John Perry and Joanna Leidenhag. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 75 pages.
This book by John Perry (School of Divinity, University of St. Andrews, Scotland) and Joanna Leidenhag (School of Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science, University of Leeds) is an argument for using science as a source for Christian theology. It is part of the Cambridge Elements series, and the authors’ stated purpose is to allow the science-engaged community to grow. The book explores how “science-engaged theology,” a term that has arisen from a community of scholars working in the field, offers a different perspective in the science-and-religion field than any previously given. Specifically, it aims to “tell the stories behind the story of why it’s so complex, why we can say more and begin to explain why science-engaged theology isn’t, and shouldn’t be, about how ‘science’ and ‘religion’ relate.”
The book covers a lot of territory, and every aspect of its wide-ranging content cannot be justly summarized in a short review. However, there are themes that hold the work together; this review will focus on them.
It is clear throughout the book that the authors embrace scientific knowledge as a source for theological reflection: “Memento naturam: a reminder that science is one of the ways that Christians have learned to listen to God.” They view empirical studies and scientific claims as serving an important reminder to theologians. For example, they argue that since theological doctrines about, for example, birth and death, or liturgy as character formation are claims about empirical realities, insights that come from experts in empirical investigation should be incorporated into any analysis of these claims.
The book is organized into six major sections. The first consists of an initial exploration of the ways in which the question, “How do science and religion relate?,” has been answered in the past. Paradigm stories or specific historical events have been the basis for various mythological narratives explaining the relationship between the two fields. These {169} include the Conflict Model, and the Non-Overlapping Magisterial Model. Emphasizing the problems central to these models, the authors proceed to review the “countless typologies” used since the 1960s to “simplify and organize the various stories into stable categories.” They end their exploration by outlining the work of Gifford Lecturers John Hedley Brooke, David Livingstone, and Peter Harrison, who offer a way to move beyond the often-unhelpful distinction between science and religion.
In the second and third sections, the authors consider the ways in which the modern word science has become a tool for a secularist ideology—a cipher for rationality—whereas theology has been perceived as its opposite. The strength of these sections is the wide range of thinkers on which the authors draw to make their point: from Descartes and Locke, Hume, and Kant, to Voltaire and Jefferson. The authors consider how scientific tools have been used to push a liberalist rationalist order that stood for emancipation, and to determine objective and universal criteria for distinguishing rationality from superstition. The authors conclude with a broad discussion of how theologians of both conservative and liberal persuasion have responded. They emphasize movements spawned by the writings of Karl Barth, who rejected both the doctrine of inerrancy promoted by conservative theologians and the retreat into private spirituality by the theologically liberal.
In the fourth section, the authors engage the question, “What is the ‘science’ that science-engaged theologians are meant to engage with?” They (intentionally) provide no universal criteria that can be applied to distinguish science from non-science. As part of this discussion, they explore what is meant by unity and disunity in the sciences to argue that if theologians embrace disunity in the sciences, it will force them to focus on topics that are local and specific as a way of gaining “genuinely novel insights on theological questions.” Rather than isolating disciplines from each other, they argue, finding ways for interdisciplinary engagement can be a fruitful way to work with the complex problems that humanity faces. The strength of this section is its robust arguments against rendering the label science meaningless while also acknowledging that we cannot know how the results of the diversity of empirical results fit together as a coherent whole because the norms of scientific practices and explanations vary across disciplines.
The final two sections address science-engaged theology itself. Section 5 gets to the heart of the matter, which is a response to the question “Why engage the sciences in theology?” This is then followed by the more practical question of how science can be used as a theological source. The authors offer “entanglement”—where claims require multiple disciplines to decipher—and “theology-as-risky” as two ways in which that can {170} happen. The question of race-based and sex-based ordination along with historical accounts of how these operated and the questions surrounding them are offered as examples of entanglement.
Section 6 offers specific advice for “those who would be science-engaged theologians.” A large part of this section consists in a point-form list that summarizes suggestions made throughout the book. Following the suggestions in academic work would result in careful and grounded scholarship with respect to bringing science into theology. What seems particularly important is to “Rely on peer-review articles and literature reviews on particular topics rather than popular level science books that unify and universalize particular findings.” To that I would add that knowing the foundation of the science well enough to avoid using scientific terms in unscientific ways is also crucial (e.g., in non-scientific circles, “quantum” and “energy” are often misused).
The book is altogether written in an engaging style and brings together a wide variety of sources to demonstrate how “science-engaged theology” fits into the larger science-and-religion field. Both a criticism and a strength is the scope of the ideas brought into focus here. There are sections that are quite brief, and much ground is covered in the relatively short text (75 pages). However, as a volume in the Element series, its purpose is act as a resource for theologians who wish to use scientific results as part of their work. In this regard, it serves as a helpful starting point by offering practical suggestions (never directions) for doing so, while providing a detailed description of the context from which these suggestions emerge and pointing to avenues deserving of further exploration.
