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Office Hours

Prof. Wildman during Fall Semester, 1997: Tuesday 3:30-5, Thursday 10:30-12 in STH room 335 (sign up for appointments using sheet on door).

Classes will meet twice each week (T,R 2:-3:30) throughout the semester. The focus on Tuesdays will typically be on lectures while the focus on Thursdays will typically be on student presentations and class discussion.

About 50-100 pages of reading is usually required for each class, and additional readings will be recommended. The primary readings for each week need to be completed by the Tuesday class session. Careful reading of the required material is expected, to ensure that our discussions are fruitful and efficient.

One or two students will lead the class discussion on most occasions during the course. A summary of the assigned reading should be duplicated and distributed in class as a basis for discussion. This summary should aim to do three things:
1. compactly state the main theses of the reading, and outline the supporting arguments;
2. critically evaluate the reading; and
3. pose a couple of questions with which to begin the discussion. The questions may bear on internal interpretation of the reading, or on its relevance or importance to external issues (significant for either the author's or the reader's context).

Each student is required to submit a 5,000 word paper on a theme within the general area of Religious Faith and Scientific Understanding. The papers should critically interact with the seminar readings. The topics of the papers should be discussed with and approved by the instructor in advance, the papers should conform to the academic and literary standards of your primary discipline, and they are to be handed in at the last seminar meeting. Do not plagiarize; check official documents for discussions of plagiarism.

The paper counts for 60% of the final grade, and seminar presentations and participation the remaining 40%. Criteria for excellence in papers, presentations, and participation will be discussed in the first meeting of the seminar.

Incompletes are not given, by STH policy, except under extraordinary circumstances (a death in your immediate family that forces you to travel, or the ebola virus in your house might qualify). Speak to Prof. Wildman about your extraordinary situation as soon as possible. Since most requests are denied, do not leave it to the last minute to ask. Also, remember that the STH Registrar has paperwork requirements.

Course Texts

The primary texts for the course are:

W. Mark Richardson and Wesley J. Wildman, eds., Religion and Science: History, Method, Dialogue (New York: Routledge, 1996)

Ian Barbour, Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).

Supplementary readings are included in the TT845 Course Packet. Both the texts and the course packet are available at the BU Bookstore. The price for the Course Packet covers both duplication and copyright permission costs.

The "Readings for Further Exploration" listed in the syllabus are available in the Boston University Library system. They are intended as starting points for preparing class presentations and essays; for filling in background in science, philosophy, and history; and for helping to satisfy curiosity. We will discuss which of these readings help further what kinds of research in class. Refer to the Bibliography in this syllabus for publishing details.

Bibliography

Listed here are the books and articles under "Suggestions For Further Exploration," as well as those included in the Course Packet. Note that articles in collections are omitted from this list.

Alexander, Richard D. The Biology of Moral Systems. New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1987.

Appleyard, Bryan. Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

Austin, William H. Waves, Particles, and Paradoxes. Rice University Studies 53. Houston: Rice University Press, 1967.

Banner, Michael C. The Justification of Science and the Rationality of Religious Belief. New York: Oxford University, 1990.

Bannister, Robert C. Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought. Philadelphia, 1979.

Barbour, Ian. Issues in Science and Religion. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990.

--------. Myths, Models and Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science and Religion. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.

--------. Religion in an Age of Science. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990.

Barrow, John D.; Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. New York: Oxford University, 1986.

--------. The Origin of the Universe. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

--------. The World Within the World. Oxford and New York: Oxford University, 1990.

Bartholomew, D. J. God of Chance. London: SCM Press, 1984.

Bell, J. Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Birch, Charles; John B. Cobb. The Liberation of Life. {??}

Bohr, Niels. Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934.

Bowker, John. The Religious Imagination and the Sense of God. Oxford, Clarendon, 1978.

--------. The Sense of God: Sociological, Anthropological and Psychological Approaches to the Origin of the Sense of God. Oxford: Clarendon, 1973.

Boyd, Robert; Peter J. Richerson. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Brooke, John Hedley. "Natural Law in the Natural Sciences: The Origins of Modem Atheism?" Science and Christian Belief 4 (1992), pp. 83-103.

--------. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991.

Buckley, Michael. At the Origins of Modern Atheism. New Haven: Yale University, 1987.

Bunge, Mario. "Analogy in Quantum Theory: From Insight to Nonsense." British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 18 (1967), pp. 265-86.

Burhoe, Ralph Wendell. Toward a Scientific Theology. Belfast: Christian Journalism Limited, 1981.

--------; Solomon Katz. "War, Peace, and Religion's BioCultural Evolution." Zygon 21/4 (December, 1986), pp. 439-72.

Campbell, Donald. "The Conflict Between Social and Biological Evolution and the Concept of Original Sin." Zygon 10/3 (September, 1975), pp. 234-49.

Cavanaugh, Michael. Biotheology: A New Synthesis of Science and Religion. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1995.

Chadwick, Owen. The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de. The Phenomenon of Man. New York: Harper, 1959.

Churchland, Patricia Smith. Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind/Brain. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986.

Churchland, Paul M. Matter and Consciousness. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT, 1984.

Clayton, Philip. Explanation from Physics to Theology: An Essay in Rationality and Religion. New Haven: Yale University, 1989.

Cosslett, Tess, ed. Science and Religion in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1984.

Crain, Steven Dale. Divine Action and Indeterminism: On Models of Divine Action that Exploit the New Physics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, Dissertation, 1993.

Crick, Francis. An Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul. New York: Scribner, 1994.

Crutchfield, James P.; J. Doyne Farmer; Norman H. Packard; Robert S. Shaw. "Chaos." Scientific American 255 (December, 1986), pp. 46-57.

Davidson, Donald. Essays on Actions and Events. New York: Oxford University, 1980.

Davies, Paul. The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.

--------. The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe. 2nd ed. New York: Basic Books, 1993.

--------. God and the New Physics. New York: Penguin, 1984.

--------. The Last Three Minutes. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

--------. and John Gribbin, The Matter Myth: Dramatic Discoveries the Challenge Our Understanding of Physical Reality. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

--------. The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

Dennett, Daniel. Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1991.

--------. Elbow Room: Varieties of Freewill Worth Wanting. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984.

Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Devaney, Robert L. An Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical Systems. 2nd ed. Redwood City: Addison-Wesley, 1989.

Dillenberger, John. Protestant Thought and Natural Science. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1960.

Draper, John William. History of the Conflict between Religion and Science. London, 1874.

Drees, Willem B. Beyond the Big Bang: Quantum Cosmologies and God. La Salle: Open Court, 1990.

--------. Religion, Science and Naturalism. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University, 1995.

Durant, John, ed. Darwinism and Divinity. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985.

Durham, William H. Coevolution: Genes, Culture and Human Diversity. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991.

Dyson, Freeman J. Infinite in All Directions. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988.

Eaves, Lindon. "Exploring the Concept of Spirit as a Model for the God-World Relationship in an Age of Genetics." Zygon 27/3 (September, 1992), pp. 261-75.

Eccles, Sir John. The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind. New York: The Free Press, 1984.

Ellis, George. Before the Beginning: Cosmology Explained. London: Boyars/Bowerdean, 1993.

Farrer, Austin. The Freedom of the Will. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1958.

Ferre, Frederick. Hellfire and Lightning Rods: Liberating Science, Technology, and Religion. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1993.

Ford, Joseph. "How Random is a Coin Toss?" Physics Today (April, 1983), pp. 40-47.

Funkenstein, Amos. Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.

Gans, Eric. Science and Faith: The Anthropology of Revelation. Savage, Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield, 1990.

Gascoigne, John. Cambridge in the Age of the Enlightenment: Science, Religion and Politics from the Restoration to the French Revolution. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Gerhart, Mary; Allan M. Russell. Metaphoric Process: The Creation of Scientific and Religious Understanding. Fort Worth, Texas: Christian University Press, 1984.

Gilkey, Langdon. Maker of Heaven and Earth: The Christian Doctrine of Creation in the Light of Modern Knowledge. Garden City: Doubleday, 1959.

--------. Religion and the Scientific Future: Reflections on Myth, Science, and Theology. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.

Gleick, James. Chaos {??}

Greene, John C. The Death of Adam: Evolution and its Impact on Western Thought. Ames: Iowa State University, 1961.

Gregersen, Niels Henrik. "Providence in an Indeterministic World." CTNS Bulletin 14/1 (Winter, 1994).

Griffin, David R., ed. The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals. Albany: State University of New York, 1989.

Glick, Thomas F., ed. The Comparative Reception of Darwinism. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1972; reprinted Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988.

Gregory, Frederick. Nature Lost? Natural Science and the German Theological Traditions of the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Hampshire, Stuart. Freedom of the Individual. Princeton, Princeton University, 1975.

--------. Thought and Action. 2nd ed. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1983.

Harre, Rom. Varieties of Realism. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986.

Harris, Errol. Cosmos as Anthropos: A Philosophical Interpretation of the Anthropic Cosmological Principle. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1990.

Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1988.

Hefner, Philip. "God and Chaos: The Demiurge Versus the Ungrund." Zygon 19/4 (December, 1984), pp. 469-485.

--------. The Human Factor. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.

Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations. New York: Harper and Row, 1971.

Herbert, Nick. Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics. Garden City: Doubleday, 1985.

Herrmann, Robert; John Marks Templeton. Is God the Only Reality? New York: Continuum, 1994.

Hesse, Mary B. Models and Analogies in Science. London: Sheed and Ward, 1963.

Hofstadter, Douglas R. Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New York: Vintage, 1980.

Hofstadter, Richard. Social Darwinism in American Thought. Boston, 1955.

Holte, John, ed. Chaos: The New Science. Nobel Conference XXVI. Lanham: University Press of America, 1993.

Horgan, John. "In the Beginning...." Scientific American (February, 1991), pp. 117-125.

Houghton, John T. Does God Play Dice? Leicester: IVP, 1988.

Hull, David L. Darwin and His Critics. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1973.

Humphrey, Nicholas. A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

Huysteen, J. Wentzel van. Theology and the Justification of Faith. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.

Irons, Willliam. "How Did Morality Evolve?" Zygon 26/1 (March, 1991): 49-90.

Jammer, Max. The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1974.

Kadanoff, Leo P. "Roads to Chaos." Physics Today (December, 1983), pp. 46-53.

Kaiser, Christopher. "Christology and Complementarity," Religious Studies 12 (1976), pp. 37-48

Kaufmann, William. Relativity and Cosmology {??}

Kellert, Stephen H. In the Wake of Chaos: Unpredictable Order in Dynamical Systems. Science and Its Conceptual Problems Series, David L. Hull, Gen. Ed. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1993.

Kitcher, Philip. Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism {??}

Klaaren, Eugene. Religious Origins of Modern Science. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977.

Kohn, David, ed. The Darwinian Heritage. Princeton, Princeton University, 1985.

Krohn, Wolfgang; Gunter Kuppers; Helga Noworty, eds. Selforganization: Portrait of a Scientific Revolution, pp. 51-63. Dordrecht, The Hague, and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990.

Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions {??}

Lammers, Ann; Ted Peters. "Genethics." CTNS Bulletin 11/4 (Fall, 1991).

Leakey, Richard. The Origin of Humankind. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

Lewin, Roger. Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos. New York, MacMillan, 1992.

Lindberg, David C.; Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science. Berkeley: University of California, 1986.

Loder, James E.; W. Jim Neidhardt. The Knight's Move, The Relational Logic of the Spirit in Theology and Science. Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1992.

MacKay, Donald M. Behind the Eye. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1991.

--------. Science, Chance and Providence. Oxford and New York: Oxford University, 1978.

Margenau, Henry; Roy Abraham Varghese, eds. Cosmos, Bios, Theos. La Salle: Open Court, 1992.

May, Gerhard. Creatio Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of 'Creation out of Nothing' in Early Christian Thought. ET A. S. Worral. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1995.

McFague, Sallie. Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language. London: SCM, 1983.

McMullin, Ernan. The Inference that Makes Science. Milwuakee: Marquette University, 1992.

Midgley, Mary. Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears. Oxford and New York: Methuen, 1985.

Monod, Jacques. Chance and Necessity. New York: Random House, 1972.

Moore, James R. The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to Come to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1870-1900. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Mascall, E. L. Christian Theology and Natural Science: Some Questions in their Relations. London: Archon Books, 1965.

Morris, Henry M., ed. Institute for Creation Research), Scientific Creationism. El Cajon, California: Master Books, 1974.

--------. The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth. Creation Life Publishers, 1972.

Murphy, Nancey. Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning. Ithaca: Cornell University, 1990.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and Faith. Philadelphia: Westminster/John Knox, 1993.

Peacocke, Arthur. Creation and the World of Science. Oxford: Oxford University, 1979.

--------. God and the New Biology. London: Dent, 1986.

--------. ed. The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981.

--------. Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming-Divine and Human, expanded ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.

Peitgen, Heinz-Otto; Hartmut Jürgens; Dietmar Saupe. Chaos and Fractals: New Frontiers of Science. New York, Berlin, London: Springer-Verlag, 1992.

Peters, Ted. Cosmos As Creation {??}

Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors. 1864.

Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.

Polkinghorne, John, One World: The Interaction of Science and Theology. Princeton: Princeton University, 1986.

--------. Science and Christian Belief. London: SPCK, 1994.

--------. Science and Creation {??}

--------. Science and Providence: God's Interaction with the World. Boston: Shambhala, 1989.

Pollard, William. Transcendence and Providence. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1987.

Powers, Jonathan. Philosophy and the New Physics. London: Routledge, 1982.

Prigogine, Ilya; Isabelle Stengels. Order Out of Chaos {??}

Richardson, W. Mark; Wesley J. Wildman, eds. Religion and Science: History, Method, Dialogue. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Roberts, Jon H. Darwinism and the Divine in America. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1988.

Rolston, Holmes. Science and Religion: A Critical Survey {??}

Ruether, Rosemary. Gaia and God. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989.

Ruse, Michael. Taking Darwin Seriously. Boston: Blackwell, 1986.

Russell, Robert John. "Free Will and Causality in Contemporary Physics." CTNS Bulletin {??}

--------. "Theological Implication of AI." CTNS Bulletin

--------; C. J. Isham; Nancey Murphy, eds. Chaos and Complexity. Berkeley: CTNS, 1995.

--------; Nancey Murphy; C. J. Isham, eds. Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory and Berkeley: CTNS, 1993.

--------; William R. Stoeger; George V. Coyne, eds. Physics, Philosophy and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding. Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1988.

Santmire, Paul. The Travail of Nature. Philadelphia, Fortress, 1985.

Schoen, Edward L. Religious Explanations: A Model from the Sciences. Durham, Duke University, 1985.

Scientific American, Cosmology + 1 {??}

--------. Recombinant DNA {??}

Searle, John. Minds, Brains and Science. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1984.

--------. The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT, 1992.

Shannon, C. E.; W. Weaver. The Mathematical Theory of Information. University of Illinois Press, 1949.

Soskice, Janet. Metaphor and Religious Language {??}

Sperry, Roger. "Mind-brain Interaction: Mentalism, Yes; Dualism, No." Neuroscience 5, pp. 195-206.

Stanesby, Derek. Science, Reason, and Religion. London: Routledge, 1988.

Stewart, Ian. Does God Play Dice? Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

Strawson, Peter. "Freedom and Resentment." Proceedings of the British Academy 48 (1962), pp. 1-25.

Theissen, Gerd. Biblical Faith: An Evolutionary Approach. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1985.

Thomas, Owen. God's Activity in the World: A Contemporary Problem. Chico: Scholars Press, 1983.

Til, Howard Van. The Fourth Day. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.

--------; Robert E. Snow; John H. Stek; Davis A. Young. Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives on the World's Formation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.

Torrance, Thomas. Transformation and Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984.

Tracy, David; Nicholas Lash, eds. Cosmology and Theology, Concilium 166 (6/1983). New York: Seabury, 1983.

Tracy, Thomas F. God, Action, and Embodiment. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984.

Trefil, Jim. The Moment of Creation {??}

Wallace, Robert. Biology: The Web of Life {??}

Ward, Keith. Divine Action. London: Collins, 1990.

Wassermann, C.; R. Kirby; B. Rordoff, eds. The Science and Theology of Information, European Conference on Science and Theology. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1992.

Weikart, Richard. "The Origins of Social Darwinism in Germany, 1859-1895." Journal of the History of Ideas (1993), pp. 469-488.

Weinberg, Steven. The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe. 2nd ed. New York: Harper, 1993.

Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1973.

White, Andrew Dickson. A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. London, 1896.

Wildman, Wesley J. "Similarities and Differences in the Practice of Theology and Science." CTNS Bulletin XIV/3 (Fall, 1994).

--------; Robert John Russell. "Chaos: Mathematical Introduction with Philosophical Reflections." In Russell, Chris Isham and Nancey Murphy, eds., Chaos and Complexity.

Wiles, Maurice F. God's Action in the World. London: SCM Press, 1986.

Wilson, Edward O. On Human Nature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.

--------. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984.

Zurek, W. H., ed. Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information. Addison-Wesley, 1990.

Zygon 19/2 (June, 1984), for articles on sociobiology by Reiss, Singer, Rottschaefer and Martinsen, Peacocke, and Hefner; 27/2 (June 1992), pp. 221-34, for a set of reviews of majors works in theology and science; and 27/3 (September 1992), for a set of responses to the reviews of the previous issue.

The information on this page is copyright ©1994-2010, Wesley Wildman (basic information here), unless otherwise noted. If you want to use ideas that you find here, please be careful to acknowledge this site as your source, and remember also to credit the original author of what you use, where that is applicable. If you want to use text or stories from these pages, please contact me at the feedback address for permission.

SPR Proseminar

Wildman's Weird Wild Web

Housekeeping

News

Office Hours

Requirements

Course Texts

Bibliography

Wildman's
Weird Wild Web