SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN HOPE
A DIALOGUE AND INTEGRATION OF THEIR END-TIME NARRATIVES
Keywords:
Science and Eschatological Hope, End-time Narratives, Epistemology of Science, Epistemology of HopeAbstract
Ruminations about how the world will end continuously stir the curiosity and imagination of a lot of people. These thoughts mostly deal with the possible end-story of history. Science, on one hand, surmises history’s tragic end in its theories about cosmic death. On the other hand, Christianity believes in existence that transcends personal and cosmic death. On surface, the two seem to contradict each other. For some, this confirms the notion that science and Christianity cannot go hand and hand or, worse, that they are adversarial to each other. This paper argues that while the scientific and the Christian end-time narratives are not identical, still they do not essentially contradict each other. Science and Christian hope must respect their given distinctions, i.e. their fundamental epistemological and methodological differences. But, nonetheless, the two could dialogue and mutually enrich each other’s understanding of reality. Therefore, one does not have a limited choice of believing only either the scientific or the Christian-hope narrative. A Christian may opt to acknowledge what science validly says while remaining faithful to one’s conviction and hope for an eschatological future.
References
John Haught, Resting on the Future: Catholic Theology for an Unfinished Universe, New York: Bloomsbury: 2015.
Nicholas Thomas Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, New York: Harper Collins, 2008.
Adam Becker, “How Will the Universe End, And Could Anything Survive?,” BBC, June 2, 2015.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/ 20150602-how-will-the-universe-end. See Gemma Lavender, “How Will the Universe End?
https://www.spaceanswers.com/deepspace/how-will-the-universe-end/.
http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/py105/Secondlaw.html.
Lee Smolin, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, New York: Basic Books, 2001, Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universei, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Hacourt, 2013.
Andre Linde, “The Self-Reproducing Inflationary Universe,” Scientific American 271, 5 (November 1994).
Heidi Ann Russell, Quantum Shift: Theological and Pastoral Implications of Contemporary Developments in Science, Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2015.
Allan Day, “Ways of Relating Science and Faith,” Notes on Science & Christian Belief, Huntingdale, Victoria: ISCAST (Vic), 2009.
John Haught, Christianity and Science: Toward a Theology of Nature, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2007.
Dermot Lane, Keeping Hope Alive: Stirring in Christian Theology, New York: Paulist Press, 1996.
Wright, Surprised by Hope, 91. See John Polkinghorne, The God of Hope and the End of the World, London: Yale University Press, 2002.
John Polkinghorne, Science & Theology: An Introduction, London: Fortress Press, 1998.
Russell, Quantum Shift, 157. See also Juan Alfaro, Christian Hope and the Liberation of Man, Sydney: E.J. Dwyer, 1978.
Frederick Suppe, “Epistemology,” The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: An Encyclopedia, ed. Gary Ferngren, New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000.
Bernard Schumacher, A Philosophy of Hope: Josef Pieper and the Contemporary Debate on Hope, trans. D.C. Schindler, New York: Fordham University Press, 2003.
Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 181. See Edward Schillebeeckx, Interim Report on the Books ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’, London: SCM Press, 1990.
John Polkinghorne, Science and Providence: God’s Interaction with the World, Boston: Shambhala, 1989.
Allister McGrath, Surprised by Meaning: Science, Faith, and How We Make Sense of Things, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.
Ted Peters, “Science and Theology: Toward Consonance,” Science & Theology: The New Consonance, ed. Ted Peters, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1999.
John Haught, Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation, New York: Paulist Press, 1995.
