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The God of Nature - Incarnation and contemporary Science
- Lemma
- The God of Nature - Incarnation and contemporary Science
- English
- Tampakis, Kostas
- Modes of interaction - Natural and the supernatural > Miracles - Ecumenism and dialogue > Dialogue between religions
- 18-10-2018
- Knight, Christopher [Author]. The God of Nature - Incarnation and Contemporary Svience
- The God of Nature : Incarnation and Contemporary Science
- Panentheism - sacramental naturalism - incarnational naturalism - Sherrard, Philip - St. Maximus the Confessor - Logos
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This book is the second book by Father Knight, after he had converted to Orthodox Christianity. It continues the themes that his first book, Wrestling with the Divine, first set. Its main goal is to set up a response by Christianity in the light of contemporary natural sciences’ advances. It programmatically aims to correct strong theistic naturalism by rethinking the importance of incarnation. To do so, it harnesses theological thought from both sides of the Eastern/Western Christianity divide.
The book consists of sixteen chapters. The first chapter traces succinctly the history and influence of natural theology in Western thought, showing how it has sparked a deep mistrust to theologians, but has also gained a recent popularity among scientists. It ends by describing a new theology of nature, a philosophy of emergence, that sees the potential of the early universe as manifesting the intentions of a divine creator. The second chapter starts by recognizing scientific and religious understanding as being in different Kuhnian paradigms and goes on to discuss how Dawkins’ thought, and essentially any atheist’s, is an embryonic nihilism. In fact, the author states, if religion is to approach atheists and sceptics, more than an appeal to reason is necessary. Rather, such a rapprochement needs to appeal to the need for intrinsic value. Moreover, Christian understanding itself must be seen as an approximate truth, the same way that scientific knowledge is often seen as approximate.
The third chapter tackles the problem of divine providence. Knight discusses the merits and problems of deistic and semi-deistic interpretations, from a God who fills the gaps to God as an absentee landlord that could visit the Universe and intervene. He also discusses the same problem in the context of a weak versus a strong theological naturalism, and he discusses the problems he sees in such approaches. His own view, in the light of the new theology of nature is brought forth in the next, fourth, chapter. In it, the author describes the emergence of what he calls an incarnational naturalism, which will set the way for his fully-fledged pansacramental naturalism. The aim of the chapter is to describe how nature, seen as following ‘fixed instructions’ from God, can nevertheless be more subtle than modern science can explain. Thus, even if we consider a Creator totally separated from his creation, then, the author argues, it does not follow that a naturalistic account of nature can explain all phenomena. Even more so, the chapter affirms, if we consider that the notion of this separation is being revised theologically, and that a panentheistic view of the world, in which exists in God, is becoming more and more widespread.
The fifth chapter then moves on to discuss miracles. The author notes that the original meaning of the word ‘miracle’ is not the unexplainable, but that which elicits wonder. As such, miracles may be, in essence, repeatable without being repeatable on demand. Several scientific phenomena fulfil the same criteria, and as such, miracles may do the same. By specific examples, the author shows that miracles, for an incarnational naturalist, may happen, without violating the ordained order of nature. The only thing necessary is to recognize that such an order may be subtler, more complex and not fully explicable by modern science. The sixth chapter tackles specifically the Resurrection of Christ as a way to discuss culturally conditioned vision of important aspects of Christian theology. The point made on the chapter is that a panscramental naturalism allows for such experiences. Moreover, vision understood not only as a naturalistic event but as a spiritual one can help us understand the aspects of the experience of the resurrection by contemporaries, even if today we consider such experiences improbable. Thus, the stage is set for the seventh chapter, in which the visionary and contemplative understanding of revelatory experience is discussed. It proposes a phenomenalistically Jungian view, in which revelatory experience is seen as both referring to a reality which God wants to make known and to a component shaped by cultural expectations. The discussion on the chapter also leads to a recognition of the eschatological nature of human psychology, which is then seen in the light of pansacramental naturalism to be such, that revelation can function in this specific way.
The next two chapters work towards providing a theology of the faiths of the world, in the light of pansacramental naturalism. They first point is whether, and how, it would be possible for non-Christian faiths to have received revelationary experience from God. The author argues for the essential validity of Sherrard’s view that the Logos must be everywhere, and will not be the same. After discussing how such a view relates to the dualistic view of revelation offered in the previous chapters, the author moves on to a more detailed discussion of Sherrard’s argument, and shows how it can be complemented by Behr’s notion of the progression of salvation. The tenth chapter discusses the image-producing and sign-using faculties of the psyche, in relation to the liturgy and the mysteries of the Orthodox tradition. The author makes the case that, through the lens of pansacramental naturalism, anything that has emerged naturalistically within the cosmos and tends towards an authentic appreciation of God should be seen theologically as an aspect of God’s will. Thus, art, sacrament and liturgy should be seen as such an activity by the sign-producing human.
Chapter eleven discusses the sexual evolution of humanity in the light of its natural-law theological advocacy. The author mostly discusses Sherrard’s views, especially his ideas about the ‘garments of skin’ materiality of the human body in Orthodoxy. Knight makes the case that such an analysis is incomplete, though useful, and argues that it leaves the basic question unanswered. The following twelfth chapter expands the analysis, by including the theological ideas of Maximus the Confessor and Nellas, and incorporating what Western theology usually terms the problem of evil. The author again brings forth his proposal of an ontological theological naturalism, in which Divine intervention is seen as ‘activating’ what is already there within the world, by wiping away ‘the grime of the Fall’.
The thirteenth chapter attempts to more fully develop the notion of incarnational naturalism, as emerging from pansacramental naturalism. A first step is a discussion of the notion of the Logos in the cosmos, as first expressed in the Fourth Gospel. The author develops the idea of a God incarnate in all human and created existence, using Maximus’ idea of a multiple logoi. He also discusses how such an idea was severely restricted in the West. He concludes that Eastern theologians should, by virtue of their own tradition, be receptive of scientific ideas, and that the Eastern notions discussed can be extended to Western theology as well. A rapprochement would require that both West and East are willing to modify their perspective according to current philosophical and scientific insights of the world. Chapter fourteen tackles the question of a feminist and ecological perspective of theology. The author clearly states that incarnational naturalism is not the only path towards such perspectives. Knight discusses Deane- Drummond ‘s work critically. He shows how her work can be developed towards a theology that sees the divine Logos not only associated with male jesus and a ‘masculine’ rationality, but also as a ‘feminine’, intuitive manner associated with the Holy Spirit.
In the next chapter, chapter fifteen, the author sets forth to assemble all the perspectives he has outlined to develop a single model of God’s actions in the world. He calls it the neo-Byzantine model, which is at the same time conservative but also partially revolutionary. Knight discusses how his model is at the same time naturalistic, while not considering the God an absent creator. Instead, by using Maximus’ conceptions of the Logoi and denying the separation of man and God, divine interference is seen as a consequence of how the cosmos was created. Such teleology also explains why and how human experience is subjective when it comes to revelation, without questioning its value. Finally, the author offers four reasons on why such a model is better than the alternatives: Firstly, it is based on explicit theological understanding, secondly, questions on how God acts on the world become meaningless, thirdly, the model is naturalistic without limiting divine providence and finally, the model removes the tension between scientific understanding and belief in divine action. The last sixteenth chapter tackles the question of intercessory prayer, as a way to add evidence to the framework proposed by the book. The author starts by discussing post-classical notions of time and space, and shows why the traditional views of past, present and future are not tenable, in the light of scientific developments. He then discusses the temporality of God and shows why an atemporal, non-temporal God does not preclude divine intervention. Cause and effects are not ‘responses’ and ‘anticipations’. Prayer can be about things in the past that we are not aware of. The book ends with an afterword.
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