Ground And Grammar Of Theology: Consonance Between Theology and Science
Thomas F. Torrance
Language: English
Pages: 194
ISBN: 0567043312
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The futures seems to be full of promise and excitement. Certainly at no time for nearly a millenium and a half has the opportunity for genuine theology been greater, since the ground has been cleared in the remarkable way of the old dualist and atomistic modes of thought that have plagued theology for centuries. It is, therefore, up to us as theologians to develop theology on its own proper ground in this scientific context, if only because this is the kind of life and culture, and the kind of theology that can support the message of the Gospel to mankind, as, in touch with the advances of natural science, theology comes closer and closer to a real understanding of the creation as it came from the hand of God.
which I alluded in the first lecture. Let us consider this again, in relation to the theological account given in the opening chapters of Genesis of man's place and function in the creation. On the one hand, we find that the universe is made by God in such a way that it produces life and form out of itself, each kind producing its own kind. On the other hand, we find that the universe by itself is dumb, but within the universe there is planted man, whose task it is to identify and name, that is,
prescientific—knowledge and experience in which observation plays a powerful role, to scientific levels, for the basic concepts and terms that arise at the level of our prescientific observations, even when they naturally involve an integration of empirical and theoretical elements, need to be changed, and sometimes drastically, if they are to be adequate for scientific knowledge. That applies no less to theology than to natural science. To refer to Athanasius once again, he pointed out that
unique status of the Light that God is, from a theological point of view. Here we have a problem, with which Einstein, at this point at any rate, does not seem to have reckoned. When we take the statement "God is deep but not devious," which expressed his conviction that throughout the physical universe there is an order of a trustworthy and reliable kind, and generalize it to comprehend all human existence and experience, we find that it does not take account of evil, pain, error, and sin—that
something to be set against our ordinary and natural experience in the world, but, on the contrary, is a development and a refinement of it, with a deeper penetration into the natural coherences and patterns already embedded in the real world and already governing our normal behavior day by day. All this applies as much in our relations with God as in our relations with nature or with one another. There is no secret way of knowing either in science or in theology, but there is only one basic way
applied to the problem of quantum theory or of particle theory. And in fact that has been done with real success by Professor Christopher B. Kaiser in a work that is as yet unpublished. Here, then, we have an instance where Christian theology in its rigorous, scientific form can be of real help even to natural science, where it is concerned with the almost inexpressible, intricate, intelligible exchange-relations in the microphysical field. Be that as it may, what I am concerned to do here is to