Re-Imagining Nature E-Book

Alister E. McGrath

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 546

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Reimagining Nature is a new introduction to the fast developing area of natural theology, written by one of the world's leading theologians. The text engages in serious theological dialogue whilst looking at how past developments might illuminate and inform theory and practice in the present. * This text sets out to explore what a properly Christian approach to natural theology might look like and how this relates to alternative interpretations of our experience of the natural world * Alister McGrath is ideally placed to write the book as one of the world's best known theologians and a chief proponent of natural theology * This new work offers an account of the development of natural theology throughout history and informs of its likely contribution in the present * This feeds in current debates about the relationship between science and religion, and religion and the humanities * Engages in serious theological dialogue, primarily with Augustine, Aquinas, Barth and Brunner, and includes the work of natural scientists, philosophers of science, and poets

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Praise for Re-Imagining Nature

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Chapter 1: Natural Theology: Questions of Definition and Scope

The Aim of This Work

A Brief Genealogy of Natural Theology

Natural Theology: Six Approaches

The Natural Theology Project: Thick and Thin Descriptions

In Defense of a “Christian” Natural Theology Project

The Christian Accommodation of Classic Natural Theology

Chapter 2: Natural Theology and the Christian Imaginarium

Sensorium and Imaginarium: Christianity and the Re-Imagination of Nature

Modernity and the Suppression of the Imagination

Metanoia: Seeing Things as They Really Are

Imaginative Transformation: The Church as an Interpretive Community

Theōria: Imaginative Beholding and Rational Dissection

Nature as logikos: Reflections on the Doctrine of Creation

Metaphors of Beauty and Order: Harmony and the Dance

Chapter 3: Text, Image, and Sign: On Framing the Natural World

Natural Theology as a Habitus

The Intellectual Challenge of the Ambiguity of the World

Nature as a Text: Natural Theology and the Book of Nature

Nature as Image: Natural Theology and Landscapes

Nature as a Sign: Natural Theology and Semiotics

Chapter 4: Natural Theology: Contexts and Motivations

The Importance of Cultural Location for Natural Theology

A New Vocational Space: Natural Theology as a Religious Calling

The Wasteland: Natural Theology and the Recovery of a Lost Nature

Wonder and Mystery: Transcendent Experiences

Re-Enchantment: Sustaining a Sense of Wonder

The Rational Transparency of Nature and Faith

Connectedness: The Human Longing for Coherence

Meaning: Nature and Ultimate Questions

Natural Theology as a “Natural” Quest

Chapter 5: Natural Theology: Some Concerns and Challenges

Natural Theology: Improper and Redundant?

Ontotheology? Natural Theology and Philosophical “First Principles”

David Hume: The Intellectual Inadequacy of a Deist Natural Theology

Charles Taylor: Natural Theology and the “Immanent Frame”

Barth and Brunner: The Debate which Discredited Natural Theology?

Fideism: Natural Theology as Self-Referential and Self-Justifying?

Chapter 6: The Promise of a Christian Natural Theology

The Natural Sciences: Natural Theology and the Subversion of Scientism

The Affective Imagination: Natural Theology and the Spirituality of Nature

Boundaries and Trespass: Natural Theology and Systematic Theology

Apologetics: Natural Theology and Public Engagement

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Chapter 1

Pages

i

ii

iii

iv

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

148

149

150

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

160

161

162

163

164

165

166

167

168

169

170

171

172

173

174

175

176

177

178

179

180

181

182

183

184

185

186

187

188

189

190

191

192

193

194

195

196

197

198

199

200

201

202

203

204

205

206

207

208

209

210

211

212

213

214

215

216

217

218

219

220

221

222

223

224

225

226

227

228

229

230

231

232

233

234

235

236

237

238

239

240

241

242

243

244

245

246

247

248

249

250

Praise for Re-Imagining Nature

“Encounter this book with enormous respect. In this remarkable text, McGrath is judicious, audacious, and perceptive. Setting the entire project of natural theology in an historical context, he weaves together an account of natural theology that is innovative, powerful, and intriguing. Critics and advocates for natural theology alike will have their worldview changed as they encounter this remarkable argument.”

Ian S. MarkhamDean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary

“This theological book emerges from a deep and integrating vision of creation – the natural world appreciated through the Christian imaginarium. Composed in crystalline prose, McGrath explores the complexity of theologia naturalis in a way that is both insightful and erudite. He enriches the particularities of place with a spirituality always and only historically and culturally localised. In a time of global ecological concerns, this is a much needed labour. Christians need to engage these concerns, rooting them profoundly in a thick account of reality and what it is to be alive. There's a promise of transformation in doing this, and McGrath knows it. This book is an exciting testimony to the imaginative power behind that promised potential.”

Graham WardUniversity of Oxford

“In this game-changing book, Alister McGrath develops a thick theology of nature from a distinctly Christian point of view. He expertly tackles topics that are underexplored in traditional natural theology, such as the moral and aesthetic ambiguity of nature, emphasising the importance of both rational and imaginative ways of engaging with nature.”

Helen de CruzOxford Brookes University

“Being informed about natural theology is essential to any substantive understanding of the relationship of science and theology. The present book nicely sums up and carries further his indispensable contributions to the topic.”

John F. Haughtauthor of Science and Faith: A New Introduction

“In contemporary theology, the project of natural theology has many opponents. In his latest book, Re-Imagining Nature, McGrath presents an ambitious vision for retrieving a holistic Christian understanding of natural theology that goes beyond the rationalistic proofs of God's existence of the nineteenth century. By stressing the imaginative powers of human beings and not just rational ones, McGrath defends a thick and contextual but at the same time traditional model of Christian natural theology as a way of seeing the world. A stellar addition to the contemporary literature on natural theology.”

Aku VisalaUniversity of Helsinki

Also by Alister E. McGrath from Wiley-Blackwell

The Christian Theology Reader, 5th edition (2016)

Christian Theology: An Introduction, 6th edition (2016)

Darwinism and the Divine (2011)

Theology: The Basic Readings, 2nd edition (2011)

Theology: The Basics, 3rd edition (2011)

Science and Religion: An Introduction, 2nd edition (2010)

The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology (2008)

Christianity: An Introduction, 2nd edition (2006)

The Order of Things: Explorations in Scientific Theology (2006)

Luther's Theology of the Cross, 2nd edition (2005)

Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life (2004)

A Brief History of Heaven (2003)

The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism (ed., with Darren C. Marks, 2003)

The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, 2nd edition (2003)

The Future of Christianity (2002)

Christian Literature: An Anthology (2000)

Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 3rd edition (2000)

Christian Spirituality: An Introduction (1999)

Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (1998)

The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion (1998)

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought (1995)

A Life of John Calvin (1993)

For a complete list of Alister E. McGrath's publications from Wiley-Blackwell, visit our website at http://www1.alistermcgrathwiley.com/

Re-Imagining Nature

The Promise of a Christian Natural Theology

Alister E. McGrath

This edition first published 2017

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

Editorial Offices350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UKThe Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.

The right of Alister E. McGrath to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McGrath, Alister E., 1953- author.

Title: Re-imagining nature : the promise of a Christian natural theology / Alister E. McGrath.

Description: Hoboken : Wiley, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015046827 | ISBN 9781119046301 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119046356 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Nature--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Theology.

Classification: LCC BT695.5 .M4437 2016 | DDC 231.7--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046827

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Hans Gude: From Hardanger, 1847. Photo © O. Væring

Set in 10/12.5pt, GalliardStd-Roman by Thomson Digital, Noida, India.

1 2017

Introduction

Natural theology has never lost its deep appeal to the human imagination. Might the beauty and wonder of the natural world point to a deeper order of things, even if this is only partially glimpsed rather than fully grasped? Does nature point us toward – to use the imagery of Dante – a “hidden path” leading to a “shining world”?1 Does the idea of God continue to provide a “repository for our awestruck wonderment”2 at life itself, or the natural world around us? A natural theology is both a response to and an expression of a real experience of the world of nature, which seems to call for further exploration.

This book sets out to explore what a properly Christian approach to natural theology might look like, and how this relates to alternative interpretations of our experience of the natural world. Although I interact with contemporary theological debates about the nature and scope of natural theology, my more fundamental concern is to demonstrate the potential of natural theology in enabling a productive and significant interaction between Christianity and a wider culture, including the natural sciences.3

Re-Imagining Nature opens by offering a genealogical account of the six main divergent senses in which the term theologia naturalis has been understood in the western intellectual tradition since late classical antiquity. Does such a plurality of construals point to the incoherence of natural theology? Or is there some grander vision of natural theology which is able to accommodate and colligate these six approaches? Exploring the genealogy of natural theology discloses its rich and complex history on the one hand, and subverts narrow and inadequate conceptions of the project on the other.

The recognition of the social construction of such notions as “nature,” “science,” and “religion,” particularly during the early modern period,4 indicates that there is no predetermined essential form of nature or natural theology; it is rather open to cultural revision and ideological reconstruction, reflecting the social and cultural location of its practice.5 As C. S. Lewis often remarked, the latest is not always the best; furthermore, “a genuinely new perspective often means embracing and developing an old insight.”6 I argue that a “Christian natural theology project” may be developed which holds together a variety of understandings of the notion as aspects or elements of a coherent greater whole. Such a “thick understanding” of natural theology resonates with some of the fundamental themes of Christianity, allowing a retrieval of forgotten or suppressed approaches to these issues.

Given the impossibility of articulating a natural theology “from nowhere,” this work makes a case for developing a specifically Christian approach to natural theology, and exploring how this correlates and connects with its alternatives. The modernist dogma of a single way of understanding the world has, largely due to its lack of evidential warrant, given way to the recognition of multiple perspectives of reality – including an important family of perspectives which are grounded and shaped by the Christian faith. I argue that a “Christian natural theology project” may be developed which holds together these six historical articulations of natural theology as aspects of a single coherent project. The form that natural theology takes is critically dependent on its context; my approach allows the marked phenomenological diversity of natural theology to be accommodated within a distinctively Christian theological vision of its grounds and possibilities.

I then turn to consider the critically important issue of the interplay of the imagination and reason in a Christian natural theology. Many writers use the term sensorium to designate the amalgam of natural human cognitive capacities, cultural webs of meaning, and accessible evidence which shapes human concepts of rationality in any given situation. Although this notion is important in criticizing naïve notions of a “universal rationality,” it lacks the capacity for imaginative engagement that is of critical importance for theology in general, and natural theology in particular. I thus introduce the critical concept of an imaginarium, which provides a conceptual framework for exploring the interplay of the reason and imagination within a Christian natural theology, offering a way of looking at things in which “a creative imagination is wedded to an acute intellect.”7 A purely rational or ideational construal of natural theology – such as that found in many works of systematic theology – will inevitably fail to do justice to the richness of the notion.8 Vestiges of the modernist suppression of the imagination still haunt the practice of systematic theology, and impoverish our conception of theologia naturalis.

Particular attention is paid in this important chapter to the concept of metanoia – traditionally translated as “repentance,” but more fundamentally designating a graceful re-orientation of the mind, through which the self and the world are seen in a new and more satisfying manner. Natural theology is one of the outcomes of this process of mental renewal and imaginative transformation, in that we come to imagine the natural world in a new manner.

So how does a Christian natural theology cope with the ambiguity and complexity of the natural world? The third chapter notes the difficulties for a natural theology arising from the moral and aesthetic ambiguity of nature, and explores three interpretative strategies that are based on conceiving nature as a book to be read, a picture to be appreciated, and a sign to be understood. Each of these has a long history of use within the Christian tradition, but is capable of further development in dialogue with recent explorations of their potential.

I then move on to deal with questions of motivation and context, noting how the context within which natural theology is undertaken shapes its forms and construals. Among the themes to be considered are the role of industrialization in creating a desire to reconnect with the natural world, the role of a sense of wonder at the beauty and majesty of nature as a gateway to understanding it, and the human quest for an existentially satisfying “big picture” of life, which embraces the world of nature.

The fifth chapter addresses six major concerns about natural theology, identified in conversation and dialogue with critics, including both fundamental protests about the theological legitimacy of the approach (such as that famously articulated by Karl Barth), and wider concerns about the intellectual and cultural viability of the notion in general, and the particular approach that I develop in this study. In each case, I try to give a fair summary of the concern, before offering a response to the issues being raised. This chapter is placed late in this book, thus allowing some of these concerns to be engaged during the exposition of my approach to a Christian natural theology.

The final chapter explores the promise of a Christian natural theology, and sets out how this “re-imagination of nature” offers the promise of an enhanced and enriched vision of theology itself, as well as enabling a principled and productive dialogue with other intellectual and cultural stakeholders.

This work builds on three earlier interventions in contemporary discussions about the nature and scope of natural theology, based on major academic lecture series in the United Kingdom: the 2008 Richardson Memorial Lectures at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne; the 2009 Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen; and the 2009–10 Hulsean lectures at the University of Cambridge. These were published as The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology (2008); A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (2009); and Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology (2011). These three volumes laid the deep foundations for this new study, which is essentially a free-standing essay exploring the promise, potential, and problems of a Christian natural theology. Given my substantial level of engagement with the natural sciences in A Fine-Tuned Universe and Darwinism and the Divine, the present volume focusses on other themes, while noting the importance of a Christian natural theology in challenging the inadequacies of “scientism.”

In those three earlier works, I suggested that Christian discussion about natural theology required retrieval of older understandings of the notion needlessly neglected as a result of controversy. There is a clear need for a reconceptualization of the identity and strategy of a Christian natural theology, and for it to be emancipated from polemical agendas which cast a long shadow over any serious discussion of its nature and scope. In particular, I identified four areas in which a refocussing of the concept of natural theology was appropriate for Christian theology:

A dogmatic relocation of the concept of natural theology from the domain of “the natural” to that of “the revealed”;

A replacement of the fundamentally Deistic concept of God associated with the approaches to natural theology which developed in England during the long eighteenth century (1688–1815)

9

with a distinctively Christian vision of God;

A fuller recognition of the theological and philosophical significance of the basic psychological truth that the human observer is an active interpreter of the natural world, not its passive spectator;

An acknowledgment of the importance of the imagination in any Christian encounter with the natural world, particularly in relation to its beauty. John Keats's notion of the “truth of the imagination”

10

may be an imperfect realization of this insight, but it articulates the potential of the human imagination as a truth-bearer.

These four motifs remain embedded within the vision of natural theology which is set out in this volume. Yet my conversations with my critics, subsequently expanded through detailed historical research, has persuaded me of the importance of a fifth theme, hinted at but not fully developed in these three earlier works, which needs to incorporated into an informed discussion of the project of a natural theology:

Natural theology is situationally embedded, so that a theology of

nature

exists in an interactive relationship with a theology of

place

.

11

The theory and practice of natural theology in any given historical and cultural context are shaped by its present preoccupations and presuppositions, and its memories of the past.

My study of the perspectives from which nature has been “read” during the last two millennia has made it clear that different cultural locations have developed different “protocols of reading” nature,12 making it impossible to reflect on the changing shape of natural theology without a sustained engagement with the cultural location of the reader of the “book of nature.” Although this work is rich in historical analysis, its ultimate object is not the exploration of how natural theology has developed in various cultural places in the past, but how such past developments might illuminate and inform its theory and practice in the present.

It remains for me to thank my many colleagues at Oxford and beyond who have helped me develop my ideas on natural theology over many years, often by challenging the integrity and propriety of the notion in the first place. Theology is always at its best when undertaken in critical and respectful dialogue, and I owe more to my critics than I can adequately express.

Alister McGrathOxford, December 2015

Notes

1.

Dante,

Inferno

, 34, 133–5.

2.

Rushdie,

Is Nothing Sacred?

, 8. See also Mancini,

Filosofia della religione

, 41–2, 129–30; Tallis,

In Defence of Wonder

, 1–22.

3.

As I have already dealt recently at some length with the interaction between natural theology and recent theoretical developments in the physical and biological sciences, including an engagement with the substantial research literature in these fields, only minimal reference will be made to these matters in this work: see A. E. McGrath,

A Fine-Tuned Universe

, 111–216; A. E. McGrath,

Darwinism and the Divine

, 185–276.

4.

See Demeritt, “What Is the ‘Social Construction of Nature’?”; Evernden,

The Social Creation of Nature

, 37–104; P. Harrison,

The Territories of Science and Religion

, 1–19; Gerber, “Beyond Dualism”; A. E. McGrath,

A Scientific Theology

: vol. 1,

Nature

, 81–133.

5.

See Greider and Garkovich, “Landscapes”; Escobar, “After Nature”; C. M. Harrison and Burgess, “Social Constructions of Nature.”

6.

Antognazza, “The Benefit to Philosophy of the Study of Its History,” 165.

7.

Barfield,

Poetic Diction

, 178.

8.

Cf. Barfield,

Poetic Diction

, 28: “Only by imagination therefore can the world be known.”

9.

Black, “Britain and the ‘Long’ Eighteenth Century, 1688–1815”; O'Gorman,

The Long Eighteenth Century

.

10.

See his letter to Benjamin Bailey, dated November 22, 1817: “I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination.” Keats,

Letters

, 67. For comment, see Sallis,

Force of Imagination

, 15–21.

11.

For the basic themes of such a “theology of place,” see Sheldrake,

Spaces for the Sacred

; J. Inge,

A Christian Theology of Place

, 59–122.

12.

For this important notion, see Scholes,

Protocols of Reading

.

1Natural TheologyQuestions of Definition and Scope

The heavens declare the glory of the Lord.

(Psalm 19: 1)

Many have experienced a sense of awed wonder at the beauty and majesty of nature, evoked by a stunning verdant landscape, a majestic mountain range, or the cold and clear beauty of the sky at night.1 But might such an experience be a portal to something still greater? Might this evoke our curiosity, in the deepest sense of that word – a “respectful attentiveness” to the beauty and complexity of the world around us?2

Such an attentiveness allows nature to act as a gateway, a threshold to ways of imagining the world, and our place within it. The journey of exploration that is precipitated by a sense of wonder in the presence of nature leads to “a new way of looking at things,” in which we see things as if they were new and unfamiliar,3 bathed in “a sense of the ‘newness’ or ‘newbornness’ of the entire world.”4 Both science and religion can be argued to be a response to a sense of wonder at the world around us and within us.5

Yet there is another possible outcome, which intersects and interconnects the domains of science and religion, the sacred and secular, in a manner that is perhaps easier to describe than to define. It is often articulated most clearly by those natural scientists who sense that their research is opening up deep questions about meaning, truth, and beauty which lie beyond the capacity of science to answer, and by those theologians who realize that the rich imaginative and conceptual framework of the Christian faith makes it possible to understand the achievements and limits of the scientific enterprise in an informed and enriched manner.6 This is traditionally known, however inadequately and provisionally, as “natural theology.”7

Natural theology can broadly be understood as a process of reflection on the religious entailments of the natural world, rather than a specific set of doctrines.8 In its most general sense, it can be undertaken from a variety of viewpoints, secular and religious, and has no “essential” core, other than an engagement with the question of the relationship of nature (including the human observer) and the divine or transcendent. There are many insights to be quarried and questions to be explored at this rich interface – including the question of whether the natural world is able to signify, intimate, or disclose, no matter how provisionally, a transcendent reality which lies beyond it.