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THEOLOGICAL APPROPRIATION OF SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDINGS: RESPONSE TO HEFNER, WICKEN, EAVES, AND TIPLER
Author(s) -
Pannenberg Wolfhart
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9744.1989.tb01113.x
Subject(s) - eschatology , reinterpretation , epistemology , philosophy , reductionism , appropriation , meaning (existential) , theology , phenomenon , sociology , aesthetics
. Philip Hefner's focus on contingency and field as the guiding concepts in my thinking and his characterization of my theological enterprise as a Lakatosian research program are appropriate and helpful. I welcome Jeffrey Wicken's holistic approach to the emergence of life. Theology can appropriate the language of self‐organizing systems exploiting the thermodynamic flow of energy degradation for interpreting organic life as a creation of the Spirit of God. However, I cannot sympathize with Lindon Eaves's equation of “hard science” with a reductionism which raises the double helix to the status of icon; the “meaning” of DNA derives from its place in the total phenomenon of life—not the reverse. Frank Tipler's cosmology raises the prospect of a rapprochement between physics and theology in the area of eschatology. A Christian cosmology, however, would require at least three modifications: contingency in the history of creation; the uniqueness of Jesus' resurrection; and the relation of these to the problem of evil.