How to Make Analytic Science-Engaged Theology an ASSET

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between analytic theology and science-engaged theology through a historical lens, connecting contemporary disagreements between analytic metaphysicians and philosophers of science to a disagreement about philosophical method between Carnap and Quine. After discussing philosophical issues of meaning and verification in early positivism, the paper goes on to suggest that the analytic-synthetic distinction underlying much work in analytic theology is difficult to maintain when engaging with empirical methods of knowledge production such as science. To move forward, then, analytic theologians who wish to pursue science-engaged theology need a constructive methodology that embraces a blurring of the analytic-synthetic distinction. A rough sketch of one such research program, analytic-synthetic science-engaged theology, is offered as a potential ASSET for systematic theologians who wish to engage with natural and human sciences.