Thomas Torrance - Theology and Science

Theology and Science

As indicated by the fact that he was awarded the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion in 1978, Torrance made singular contributions to the dialogue between science and theology. His contributions in this area led Alister McGrath to observe that many of those theologians he studied did not seem bothered by the fact that they had no first-hand knowledge of the method and norms of natural science, but wrote about science nonetheless! But it was different with Torrance. "Torrance’s writings were, quite simply, of landmark significance." P. Mark Achtemeier describes Torrance’s work in this area as "magisterial and highly original." Christopher Kaiser noted that if Einstein was the person of the century from the perspective of the secular media, then Torrance would qualify as the theologian of the century from the perspective of people who are science minded. In his groundbreaking book Theological Science, Torrance argued that theological and natural science held in common the same need to understand reality through our thoughts by pointing beyond ourselves and not letting our subjective experiences and knowledge distort the objective reality we are attempting to conceptualize. Theology and science should be seen as "allies in a common front where each faces the same insidious enemy, namely, man himself assuming the role of Creator . . ." (Torrance, Theological Science, xiii). As long as the dialogue is conceived to be between science and religion, Torrance contended, "we shall not escape from romantic naturalism." Instead, he insisted that we must focus on the dialogue between science and theology and thus between the "philosophy of natural science" and the "philosophy of theological science" because these two methods have in common the "struggle for scientific method on their proper ground and their own distinctive fields" (Torrance, Theological Science, xiii). Torrance did a great deal to foster this discussion in his books Space, Time and Incarnation and Space, Time and Resurrection where he showed the connections between the two sciences by allowing theology to understand what it means to think of God acting in new and distinctive ways within created time and space, while respecting the distinctive nature of creation itself in its fallen and reconciled condition. Torrance famously argued for a non-dualist and non-monist view of theology and science in the school of the renowned physicist and theologian John Philoponos (490-570) whose thinking stood in stark contrast to Aristotelian and Neoplatonic thinking which Torrance believed was harmful both to science and to theology. Such thinking led to ideas of God as an unmoved mover, and thus one who was not a living God capable of acting within creation without being conditioned by creation or limited by it. Torrance approved of Einstein, Maxwell and Polanyi in their attempts to hold together thought and reality, experience and ideas, instead of tearing them apart and believed that theologians could learn from this. Such unitary thinking in science, Torrance believed, could help theologians overcome Kantian and Cartesian dualism. His theology demonstrates exactly how he thought this should be done, especially as this relates to interpreting Scripture. When form and being are separated, as they are when our ideas are separated from objective reality, then it becomes impossible to know Jesus as he is in himself; we only know Jesus as he appeared to be to his followers and this leaves the door open to the idea that Jesus could be created and re-created according to people’s faith. This was especially problematic with respect to the risen Lord. When the chord is cut between idea and reality, then it is thought that the resurrection is only a mythological way of reflecting on the death of Jesus instead of as a description of a unique occurrence in his life history that enabled a true understanding of his person and work as recorded in the scriptures.