COVID-19 has increased awareness of the threat viruses can pose and drawn attention to the different areas of suffering one can be affected by. In this article, I use viruses as a case study to exp...

The idea of moral bioenhancement has been discussed in recent years by ethicists and philosophers. While such discussion covers many different issues on Earth, they have not yet been considered in ...

While a systematic comparison of the similarities and differences between Jewish and Muslim approaches to evolution is beyond the scope of this study, it is possible to note some of the most striki...

I outline a Jewish response to theological problems emerging from Darwinian biology and contemporary cosmology. This response is rooted in an argument from genre, regarding the relationship between...

This book symposium begins with a concise historical overview of the emerging dialogue of Islam and Science. Against this, we trace the historical developments and pertinent discussion of Islam and...

In this article, I respond to my interlocutors, who have raised various points while engaging my book, Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazālī and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm. In addressing their argu...

Published in Theology and Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)

Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazālī and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm by Shoaib Ahmed Malik is a significant contribution to religious studies, likely to shape scientific dialogues with Islam for so...

In response to Shoaib Malik's Islam and Evolution, this paper compares Christian and Muslim views on six oft perceived conflicts between neo-Darwinian evolution and religion. These concern (1) holy...

In this article, I respond to Malik’s analysis of positions on common descent (“Creationism, Human exceptionalism, Adamic exceptionalism, and No exceptions”), regarding their metaphysical and herme...

The theory of evolution has supposedly displaced human beings from their lofty positions as unique special creatures and placed them within a process of evolution where they are nothing more than a...

ABSTRACT Sociological studies of Islam and science in the West have developed in the past two decades. This response is positioned in the light of one such study (https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/ptr/projects/science-british-muslim-religious-leadership.aspx). It argues that Malik’s work is part of emerging transatlantic networks of learning and authority in Islam and science discourses. It suggests

ABSTRACT Digital technology has changed individual and communal lives radically, resulting in the emergence of online-based churches. Concerns regarding the nature of online-based churches call for a theological investigation. This article critically examines ongoing debates and argues that: An online-based church should be construed and welcomed from the perspective of theocentrism. As of now, it

Published in Theology and Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)

This paper presents a Twelver Shīʿī defence of human evolution. It was written in dialogue with Shoaib Ahmed Malik's, Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghāzālī and the Modern Evolution Paradigm. It synthesis...

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 4, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 4, 2023)

Inter-religious discussion on science and religion can help focus on neglected theological and metaphysical aspects. Here, I consider two examples of this: (1) the effect of models of divine action...

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 3, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 3, 2023)

ABSTRACT This is an introduction to the special issue. It provides the historical context of Islam and Science that then leads to the theme of the issue. This special issue is the proceedings of a conference at Cambridge Muslim College that was held in December 2022.

Published in Theology and Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)

ABSTRACT Scientific realism and anti-realism, in various forms, frame many philosophical discussions about what constitutes a successful scientific theory. This paper explores this within an Islamic framework by examining the Sunnī theological tradition's various divine action models (DAMs) for their possible impact upon the theological reception of scientific realism and anti-realism, concluding that

ABSTRACT Alfred North Whitehead years ago proposed an organismic approach to physical reality in which the constituent parts of physical entities co-constitute the governing structure of the entity even as the structure constrains the ongoing activity of the constituent parts. In this article, the author proposes that such an organismic approach to reality would be strengthened if one employs a systems-oriented

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 3, 2023)

ABSTRACT This article asks what, if anything, Christian theology should learn from the cognitive science of religion (CSR). Two possible answers are explored. The first is that Christian theology has nothing to learn from CSR. This is rejected in favour of the second: theology can learn from CSR by appropriating CSR insights carefully and critically to a theological understanding formed first and foremost

ABSTRACT This article critically reviews how creationists or antievolutionists are using discussions in philosophy of science to undermine the efficacy of evolution to defuse the tension between evolution and religion. They include (1) the scientific realism debate, (2) the distinction between historical and experimental sciences, (3) the problem of induction, and (4) the definitional problem of species

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 3, 2023)

ABSTRACT A distinctive feature of many Jewish approaches to evolutionary theory has been a panentheistic understanding of the cosmos. Among the earliest Hebrew translations of Darwin are those found in Toldot Adam or The Origin of Man (1874) by the Polish Jewish Naphtali Levy (1840–1894). Often regarded as a traditionalist who sought to harmonize science and Torah, Levy was in fact much more radical

ABSTRACT Matthew Braddock’s argument from false god beliefs (AFG) is one of the most significant debunking arguments to emerge from the growing literature on Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). This argument aims to produce a defeater for any basic theistic belief. In this essay, I reply to AFG by defending a counter-example to AFG’s crucial premise. In particular, I argue that the cognitive mechanisms

ABSTRACT Bethany Sollereder’s recent work God, Evolution, and Animal Suffering attempts a novel treatment of the topic of evolutionary theodicy. While her contribution delivers several brilliant insights, its reliance upon the “Only Way” defense, open theism, and kenotic theology leaves it open for critique. After outlining these points, I propose two solutions to supplement her defense—namely Alvin

ABSTRACT This paper will look at David Malet Armstrong's conception of the Laws of Nature in light of Iqbal's conception of nature and divine action. For the sake of pragmatic austerity Armstrong rooted his theory in naturalism, physicalism, and an understanding of the world as a “state of affairs.” In contrast to Humean empiricists, nominalists, and transcendent realists, Armstrong affirmed the reality

ABSTRACT This paper integrates the notion of the Powers developed by Walter Wink with a quantum social theory posited by Alexander Wendt. While Wink argues the Powers are manifestations of social structures with an interior spirituality, resembling creatures, his picture lacks explanatory depth and is addressed by Wendt’s quantum social theory which argues agents and social structures co-emerge into

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 3, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 3, 2023)

ABSTRACT This article evaluates the “metaphysical critique” of contemporary science by the Islamic philosophical theologian Naquib al-Attas in his Prolegomena to a Metaphysics of Islām. I argue that al-Attas' critique is dialectically inappropriate because it relies on specific, and non-publicly verifiable, interpretations of revelation and spiritual intuition. I contrast this with the work of Edmund

ABSTRACT What does Islamic theology have to say about the philosophy of science? The writings of post-classical Muslim thinkers offer a wealth of understudied material relevant to conceptualizing the ontological status, scope, and character of scientific inquiry and theorization. The Islamic tradition developed nuanced metaphysical and epistemological insights on unobservables, universals, and causality

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to show that the dialogue between science and religion is not limited to the objective, methodological plane. Georges Lemaître shows that the spiritual and the intellectual paths are not parallel, in the sense that they do not meet. In the sphere of the development of one’s personality and relationships with the world, other people and God—everything becomes an argument

Published in Theology and Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)

ABSTRACT Since the Enlightenment, reductionism has been an important part of the development of science and civilization. The process of abstracting features of the world and reducing them to their most basic components has greatly increased our grasp of the physical and chemical rules that govern physical reality at all levels. However, central aspects of reductionism have been challenged with the

ABSTRACT In this article, we develop the intersection of Shīʿī Islamic philosophy and extraterrestrial life. We explain the view of Ḥukamā (Islamic Philosophers) and what implications it holds for asserting a plurality of worlds and life forms. In addition to this, we bring Shīʿī hadīth sources which also suggest the existence of other life forms outside the earth. Combining the philosophical and textual

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

ABSTRACT Settlement of the Outer Planets of the Solar System will take humans far away from the Sun, its warmth, and the light on which humans depend. Most settlements will be small mining enclaves or research stations until well into the future. Lengthy travel times will satisfy the human needs for hope, patience, acceptance, self-study, and contemplation of God's role in the universe. The authors

ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that given the possibility and prospect of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), panentheism, as a form of theism with a stronger emphasis on the immanence of God, parallels the anti-anthropocentrism implied by AGI. I discuss some general issues related to the categorization of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Next, both anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism will be

ABSTRACT To gain traction with the sciences, kenotic theologies tend to construe divine and creaturely causation in univocal, and so competitive, terms. Insofar as they share this framework with theories of divine design, or “contrivance,” I argue that they can inadvertently sustain their polemical foil. To move beyond such a stalled dialectic, this essay presents an account of non-contrastive transcendence

ABSTRACT In this article, I show why the Christian faith, which is, among other things, a response to the need for life’s meaning and an anticipation of eternal life, will not become superfluous in case digital immortality is achieved. I also deepen a view that emerges from this debate, which is the view of both Christian religion and transhumanism as promises of happiness. I argue that they differ

ABSTRACT The present article focuses on the explanation and theoretical exploration of the foundations and reasoning of three Muslim thinkers in contemporary Iran (Seyyed Hossain Nasr, Morteza Motahhari, and Mehdi Bazargan), according to the Ten Models of Ted Peters, regarding the relationship between religion and science. The study results indicate that there are commonalities among Christian and

ABSTRACT Several contributors to the collected volume, Interactive World, Interactive God, by Carol Albright, et al., examine emergence as a type of interaction from scientific and theological perspectives. In reviewing, two extensions are proposed. Systems theory can organize those investigations, and the phenomena they study, into a multilevel architecture built upon distinctions between weak emergence

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 1, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 1, 2023)

ABSTRACT The authors analyze the biblical roots of human responsibility for the earthly environment, and the forms of moral despoilment in the Bible that are later applied to environmental destruction. They then take the reader on an ecotheological journey of the Inner Planets Earth’s Moon and Mars. For each location, authors explore (1) the planetary science, (2) human adaptation to those conditions

ABSTRACT Despite various criticisms and alternative proposals, Barbour’s fourfold taxonomy has continued to serve as an intuitive introduction to Science-Religion relations. I offer a new fourfold taxonomy—called the Four “C”s Taxonomy: Conflict, Compartmentalization, Conversation, and Convergence—which improves upon the pedagogical advantages of Barbour’s taxonomy, and which avoids the weaknesses

ABSTRACT Although there is no consensus on how placebos actually work, their association with the concept of faith is considered to play a key role. In modern medicine, the traditional use of placebos raises bioethical concerns, despite the fact that it has shown extremely positive results over time. Orthodox Christian moral theology has not yet divulged its views on the matter, although several of

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 1, 2023)