Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith最新文献

{"title":"Discussions about Dispersals: Questions Rising from the Search for Historical Adam","authors":"Sara M. Koenig, C. Wall-Scheffler","doi":"10.56315/pscf12-22koenig","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-22koenig","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":53927,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86707166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Nonviolent Character of God, Evolution, and the Fall of Satan","authors":"G. Emberger","doi":"10.56315/pscf12-22emberger","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-22emberger","url":null,"abstract":"The evolutionary creation model of origins best matches the scientific evidence for evolution with common descent. However, the violence and harm associated with the evolutionary history of life may be viewed as incompatible with religious traditions such as Anabaptist that understand God to be nonviolent as revealed in the life and teaching of Jesus. This article argues that malevolent wills such as fallen angels opposed God's will in the evolutionary process and that explanations for natural evils that do not recognize the corrupting activities of fallen spirit-beings make God culpable for evil and non-Christlike in moral character. In this light, the rejection of the angelic-fall thesis by many writers is surprising. Consequently, a number of common objections to the thesis are examined. The angelic-fall approach to natural evil has biblical support, a long history in the church, support of some current-day theologians, the ability to resist objections, and many useful outcomes.","PeriodicalId":53927,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83118443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Science, Faith, and Feminism","authors":"J. Curry","doi":"10.56315/pscf12-22curry","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-22curry","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":53927,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith","volume":"88 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78981999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Creating Conspiracy Beliefs: How Our Thoughts Are Shaped","authors":"D. Albarracín, Julia Albarracín","doi":"10.56315/pscf12-22albarracin","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-22albarracin","url":null,"abstract":"CREATING CONSPIRACY BELIEFS: How Our Thoughts Are Shaped by Dolores Albarracín et al. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 308 pages. Paperback; $39.99. ISBN: 9781108965026. *Conspiracy thinking is a prominent topic of discussion in American life today--and Christians, with their concern for truth, should not only be informed about, but contributing to, this discussion. This includes awareness of how scholars in the neuro-psychological and social sciences are contributing to our understanding of the nature of conspiracy thinking. *This book investigates the causes of conspiracy thinking in the United States. Its authors draw their findings from existing social scientific literature on conspiracism, general social psychology research, and six empirical statistical studies conducted during the last two years of the Trump presidency (2019-2021): three cross-sectional online surveys, a longitudinal phone panel survey on \"deep state\" conspiracy claims, a \"manipulation\" of fear experiment on the alleged relationship between the COVID-19 virus and 5G technology, and a social media study of Twitter hashtags and \"fear words.\" *This book shares many similarities with previous academic works on conspiracy thinking--for example, Hofstadter (1965), Pipes (1997), Robins and Post (1997), Sunstein and Vermeule (2008), Barkun (2013), and Uscinski and Parent (2014)--but distinguishes itself by relying extensively on recent polling data and statistics instead of interviews, case studies, newspaper op-eds, or conspiracist media. Indeed, the authors consciously dispute psychological works that scrutinize the personality traits and life experiences of conspiracy believers, and political science works that link conspiracy fears to power asymmetries. Such approaches, they contend, insufficiently explain the process through which conspiracy beliefs are spread. They argue, instead, that psychological and political factors are themselves shaped by a mixture of personal, media, and social media contacts. *Their central aim is thus to examine how patterns of media consumption shape conspiracy beliefs, habits that are themselves affected by one's pre-existing feelings of anxiety, which is herein defined as a nonspecific \"perception of threat [that] depends on relatively stable psychological motivations of belief defense [the desire to maintain a coherent set of beliefs], belief accuracy [the desire to maintain a realistic view of the world], and social integration [the desire for trust, status, and acceptance within a group], as well as sociopolitical factors and situational factors like communications and media exposure\" (p. 163). *When these needs are not met, anxiety rises. But whereas desire for belief accuracy produces, on its own, an increase in critical discernment--and hence a decrease in false conspiracy beliefs--the combination of pre-existing anxiety (e.g., feelings of ostracism) with shared conspiracy narratives increases one's predisposition to believe con","PeriodicalId":53927,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76296569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What's Eating the Universe? And Other Cosmic Questions","authors":"Paul Davies","doi":"10.56315/pscf12-22davies","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-22davies","url":null,"abstract":"WHAT'S EATING THE UNIVERSE? And Other Cosmic Questions by Paul Davies. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2021. 208 pages. Hardcover; $22.50. ISBN: 9780226816296. *I could not have foreseen Paul Davies's latest book appearing. It is distinctively different from his previous books. Once again, it is beautifully written, as only a renowned physicist with a gift for explaining highly abstract concepts in understandable terms could accomplish. Yet this book is much shorter, much more concise, and lacks the long philosophical musings that made Paul Davies's previous books so enjoyable. It contrasts with his earlier work, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life?, a brilliant ten-chapter work over three hundred pages long. That book covers the physics of a universe just right for human life and pursues many different philosophical questions and answers. In contrast, What's Eating the Universe? has thirty truly short chapters with just 165 pages of material. Nevertheless, this book is highly recommended, especially for the novice who just wants an overview of the present state of our understanding of physics and cosmology, and a brief foray into some of the big questions. *Davies takes the reader on a journey beginning with the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) findings of ripples in the microwave radiation coming to us from every direction. These slight variations in temperature supported the Big Bang model of the universe by connecting the nearly uniform radiation background to galaxy formation with slight \"hot spots\" necessary to seed the gravity wells, allowing matter to grow from a nearly uniform state to the galaxies we see today. This is just one outstanding example of how scientific investigation has succeeded in explaining our universe. *Davies then presents a historical overview of the major ideas that have contributed to our growing understanding, moving from Copernicus to Einstein. He uses delightful analogies to help the reader grasp the ideas. For example, he uses the analogy of a trained marksman (sharpshooter) to explain how precise the initial expansion of the universe had to be for it to avoid either quickly collapsing or expanding too fast to form stars and galaxies. The many questions addressed by Davies include the speed and shape of space as it expands, the source and nature of matter, including dark matter, and the enigma of dark energy, the cause behind the accelerating expansion of the universe. Davies is a wonderfully gifted writer, and his descriptions are extremely helpful in clarifying these matters. *The title suggests that there are deeply troubling questions about our present understanding of the universe and its governing laws, leaving us with puzzling inconsistencies or paradoxes. And though there are some paradoxes, Davies is the first one to admit that the real story is that our present understanding of the universe via scientific investigation is an overwhelming success. The universe is u","PeriodicalId":53927,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith","volume":"54 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86754598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism","authors":"Stephen P. Weldon","doi":"10.1353/book.77969","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/book.77969","url":null,"abstract":"THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT OF AMERICAN HUMANISM by Stephen P. Weldon. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020. 285 pages. Hardcover; $49.95. ISBN: 9781421438580. *The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism by Stephen Weldon recounts with approval the rise of non-theistic, and even antitheistic, thought in modern science. At the outset, I will confess to being a biased reviewer (perhaps, even, an antireviewer). If I were to tell this story, I would lament, rather than celebrate, the seemingly antireligious stance lauded in this history. I must also confess to being an active participant in this history, both as an amateur student in the fundamentalist/modernist controversy in the Presbyterian churches and in my own active involvement in faith-science discussions among evangelicals in the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA). No historical account is objective--it will always reflect its author's perspective. This is true of this book and of this review. *Weldon tells the history episodically highlighting key people who contributed to this story. He begins in chapter 1, \"Liberal Christianity and the Frontiers of American Belief,\" with Unitarians (theists/deists who reject the deity of Christ), liberal Protestants, and atheistic freethinkers. After a few chapters, he turns to a largely secular story dominated by philosophers rather than ministers. Chapter 12 presents charts that show how the 1933 Humanist Manifesto had 50% signatories who were liberal and Unitarian ministers, while the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II had only 21%. By the end of book, humanism becomes secular/atheistic humanism. Weldon describes humanism as \"a view of the world that emphasizes human dignity, democracy as the ideal form of government, universal education, and scientific rationality\" (p. 5). While not explicitly mentioned, but likely included in the phrase \"scientific rationality,\" is atheism. The 1973 Humanist Manifest II begins with this theme in its opening article about religion: \"We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of survival and fulfillment of the human race. As non-theists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity.\" *Chapter 2, \"The Birth of Religious Humanism,\" tells the early 1900s story of ministers John Dietrich, Curtis Reese, and philosopher Roy Wood Sellers, all who were or became Unitarians. \"'God-talk' was no longer useful.\" Unitarianism ends up being a haven for religious humanists, even for those who have eliminated traditional religious language. These are the roots of today's secular humanism. *In many ways, this era is the other side of the religious history of America that this journal's readers may know. The ASA has roots in the more conservative and traditional end of American Protestantism. The old Princeton Presbyterians, Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, and B. B. Warfield, represent a strictly orthodox Christianity, but one open to the advances","PeriodicalId":53927,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith","volume":"89 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87890681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"12 Bytes: How We Got Here, Where We Might Go Next","authors":"Jeanette Winterson","doi":"10.56315/pscf12-22winterson","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-22winterson","url":null,"abstract":"12 BYTES: How We Got Here, Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson. New York: Grove Press, 2021. 336 pages. Hardcover; $27.00. ISBN: 9780802159250. *Throughout a set of twelve essays, Jeanette Winterson explores computing through history, culture, and philosophy. She focuses on the values and stories built into technology. She begins with a section titled \"The Past\" which refers to Ada Lovelace and Mary Shelley, explaining the origins of computing. The section that follows is about \"superpowers\" and computing. This second section is the most philosophical of the four parts of the book, navigating relationships between current and past philosophies, and explaining how technology influences the way people will think about the world. The third section is called \"Sex and Other Stories,\" which discusses sex and gender and sexism. The concluding section of the book titled \"The Future\" comprises three concluding essays. *Though I certainly did not agree with all of Winterson's claims, the book felt like one side of a respectful dialogue rather than imposing a singular view of the world. She does not directly state her current religious beliefs, but shares that she grew up as a Christian. Although her current view of the Bible is not clearly stated, she brings it into the discussion frequently and uses a respectful tone to discuss religion. For leaders in faith and technology, 12 Bytes provides thoughtful insights on many different aspects of the assumptions, history, and future of technology and how it shapes society. *Chapter 4: \"Gnostic Know-How\" is a discussion of religions, AI, and the religion of AI. Winterson compares the faith that many people place in technology to the Christian hope of the resurrection. She is far more critical of the Church of Big Tech than she is of any traditional religion. She very clearly states that faith placed in AI is misplaced, saying, \"We could create a god (AI) in our own image--warlike, needy, controlling. It isn't a good idea\" (p. 113). *In addition to religion, women are a recurring theme of the book. She starts by introducing the author Mary Shelley and the computing pioneer Ada Lovelace, who are mentioned in later essays as well. In other essays she focuses on women as a group, with trademark sass: \"Why wouldn't we want an able, considerate, smart helper who is always available, and mostly free? That used to be called a wife. But then feminism spoiled the party\" (p. 78). Multiple essays focus primarily on women, as in \"Hot for a Bot,\" which discusses sex bots as encouraging the objectification of women by building actual objects as replacements. She also discusses women and discrimination in STEM fields in the essay \"The Future Isn't Female.\" *Another significant theme is the economy. Starting with the history of workers' rights and the industrial revolution, she discusses the future of our economy, considering the rapidly changing role of technology. She expresses many concerns about Big Tech and the econ","PeriodicalId":53927,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78711160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Logic of the Body: Retrieving Theological Psychology","authors":"M. LaPine","doi":"10.56315/pscf12-22lapine","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-22lapine","url":null,"abstract":"THE LOGIC OF THE BODY: Retrieving Theological Psychology by Matthew A. LaPine. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020. 363 pages. Paperback; $26.99. ISBN: 9781683594253. *In this book, the author seeks a theological and biblical response to contemporary neuropsychology, stemming from a need for more effective pastoral care and faith-based counseling.1 LaPine seeks to address a perceived gap between a theological understanding of human agency, and current neuroscience and psychology that leaves pastors and faith-based counselors under-equipped to meet the real mental health and counseling needs they encounter. Although the ultimate purpose is to provide much-needed support for applied pastoral or counseling care, the book is written as a theological reflection to inform a practitioner's theology of practice. *Anchored in the Reformed tradition, LaPine provides an overview of pre-Reformation and Reformed 'theological history in relation to the historical evolution of the field of psychology. Given the scope of these fields, the task of a thorough theology of psychology would take volumes. As a classical Reformed theologian, LaPine uses almost four hundred pages to narrow down the conversation to the theological basis for emotions and neurobiology, specifically through the relationship between the body and mind or spirit. The relationship of will, emotion, biology, spirit, and soul forms the core pieces of this book, around which the chapters revolve. *In his introduction, LaPine presents his \"straw man\" conflict: the rich spiritual position of faith, against \"the modern, reductionist tendency to explain our emotional life exclusively in terms of brain function\" (p. xix). At the same time as he points to a distance between (secular) psychology and theology, LaPine also highlights two opposing streams of theology: one that makes the spirit or the spiritual superior to the body or biology, and one that does not. LaPine shows that neuro'psychology values the body and integrates it with the biological facts of emotion and volition (will), whereas mainstream Reformed theology does not, valuing the spiritual in primacy. LaPine notes that this dualism leaves Reformed counselors and pastors without a theology for a more holistic account of human psychology. He states that the Reformed mainstream shows a \"lack of psychological nuance\" (p. 4), leading to \"emotional volunteerism,\" or the position that people have moral culpability for emotions. In other words, an experience like anxiety becomes a moral sin, to be addressed by prescriptive spiritual re-orientation. The risk here is either a moralistic approach to mental health and human pain, or else abandonment of theology in an attempt to align counseling to contemporary psychological science in practice. Both these options undercut holistic care by undervaluing or ignoring either the body or spirit respectively. *LaPine argues, rightly in my view, that \"sufferers simply cannot repent and believe their way out of","PeriodicalId":53927,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84378744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The American Scientific Affiliation Has a Stated Position","authors":"J. Peterson","doi":"10.56315/pscf9-22peterson","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56315/pscf9-22peterson","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53927,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82664114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"God’s Future for Animals: From Creation to New Creation","authors":"Raymond R. Hausoul","doi":"10.56315/pscf9-22hausoul","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56315/pscf9-22hausoul","url":null,"abstract":"GOD'S FUTURE FOR ANIMALS: From Creation to New Creation by Raymond R. Hausoul. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2021. 284 pages. Paperback; $34.00. ISBN: 9781666703405. *Raymond Hausoul's new book, God's Future for Animals, argues that the place of animals as part of God's intention for the world has not received enough attention as it pertains to how animals have fit into creation in the present time or as a part of the eschaton. It is derived from the author's doctoral dissertation and, as such, it is scholarly in tone and well sourced, at least from the standpoint of theology and church history. Hausoul takes the reader on a journey from the creation as described in Genesis and through biblical history: the consideration of animals by the early church fathers, modern society's relationship with animals, and on to how animals will be viewed during the end times. This is an ambitious task and it makes for very dense reading. The book is about animals but there are lengthy sections in which animals are hardly mentioned, primarily because the author takes considerable time to include details (outlined in a previous book) about the new heaven and new earth. Hausoul also takes a lot of time expanding on the creation story. *At this point in the review, I think that it is fair to be transparent about myself so my biases are clear. I have spent the last 42 years teaching, doing research, and assisting livestock producers in the ways that genetics can be used to improve the efficiency of producing animal products that can benefit humans. With few exceptions, my experience was with livestock producers who took impeccable care of their animals because to do otherwise would compromise the economics of their farm or ranch. I also witnessed producers who cared deeply about the welfare of the animals in their charge. I offer this background because the reader should know why I take considerable issue with the way that the author makes assertions about food that comes from animals, the production methods that are used to produce it, and the people who are involved in the production. *Unlike the detailed literature references concerning theology and church history, Hausoul makes numerous declarations about animals with little or no reference to the literature and, at times, with little or no reference to the reality I experienced and observed. His description of the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001 is a case in point (pp. 214-15). This is a very debilitating disease which is highly transmissible. The United States has taken extreme care to ensure that the disease does not enter the country since the last outbreak in 1929. Hausoul implies that it is not very severe and dismisses the need for dramatic measures to eradicate it. He is confused about whether horses are cloven-hoofed (they aren't) and seems puzzled by the fact that horses were not included in the eradication measures (they do not contract foot-and-mouth disease). He also suggests that the cattle producers s","PeriodicalId":53927,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76436444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}