Issues in Science and Religion - Part 1: Religion and The History of Science

Part 1: Religion and The History of Science

In this part Barbour provides an overview of how scientific discovery has had an impact on theology throughout the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The major scientific discoveries made in the 17th century included those made my Galileo and Newton. The scientific discoveries made by Galileo and Newton began to describe and explain the natural and physical laws by which the earth operates. These discoveries drastically changed the way that man viewed the world and nature. This in turn caused shifts in theological thought. Natural theology emerged, where God was able to fill the scientific gaps and was responsible for the orderliness of nature. The idea of God as the "Divine Clockmaker" and the beginning of Deism can also be traced back to the 17th century.

During the 18th century the Age of Reason and Romanticism greatly shaped views on science and theology. Deism became very popular during this time among many Enlightenment scholars. Romanticism on the other hand lead to an appreciation of the underlying spirituality in nature and in man, and God's personal relationship with man and nature. This in turn lead to the concepts of moral and religious experience, which focused on man's intuition and imagination in relation to their religious experience.

The theory of evolution was developed by Darwin in the 19th century. This essentially eliminated the "God of the gaps" that had come about in the 17th century. Liberal theologians accepted the theory of evolution, and held the opinion that God works continuously through the evolutionary process. On the other hand conservatives still insisted on Biblical literalism, and they rejected Darwin's theory. For the most part theologians began to focus more on the human experience for their basis of theology.

In the next two parts of the book, Barbour goes into details of the 20th century.