The logical relationships between the ideas of evolution and of special creation are explored here in the context of a recent paper by Alvin Plantinga claiming that from the perspective of biblical religion it is more likely than not that God acted in a “special” way at certain crucial moments in the long process whereby life developed on earth. I argue against this thesis, asking first under what circumstances the Bible might be thought relevant to an issue of broadly scientific (...) concern. I go on to outline some of the arguments supporting the thesis of common ancestry, and argue finally that from the theistic perspective, special creation ought to be regarded as, if anything, less rather than more likely than its evolutionary alternative. (shrink)

Spiritual practices such as prayer have been shown to improve health and quality of life for those facing chronic or terminal illness. The early Christian healing tradition distinguished between types of prayer and their role in healing, placing great emphasis on the healing power of more integrated relational forms of prayer such as prayers of gratitude and contemplative prayer. Because autonomic tone is impaired in most disease states, autonomic homeostasis may provide insight into the healing effects of prayer. I report (...) on observations in five volunteers engaging in five types of prayer. Using heart rate variability as a measure of autonomic tone and adaptability, I review the potential correlation of type of prayer with autonomic rebalance as measured specifically by psychophysiological coherence ratios. The five types—supplication, devotion, intercession, gratefulness, and contemplative prayer—elicited varying degrees of improvements in heart rate variability and corresponding psychophysiological coherence. These observations suggest a correlation of innate healing to prayer type that is consistent with teachings from the Christian healing tradition and with modern research. Further research is warranted to verify these hypotheses. (shrink)

In his Aquinas Lecture 1992 at Marquette University, Ernan McMullin discusses whether there is a pattern of inference that particularly characterizes the sciences of nature. He pursues this theme both on a historical and a systematic level. There is a continuity of concern across the ages that separate the Greek inquiry into nature from our own vastly more complex scientific enterprise. But there is also discontinuity, the abandonment of earlier ideals as unworkable. The natural sciences involve many types of inference; (...) three of these interlock in a special way to produce “retroductive inference,” the kind of complex inference that supports causal theory. (shrink)

We provide an overview of a proposal for a new metaphysical framework within which theology and science might both find a home. Our proposal draws on the triadic semiotics and threefold system of metaphysical categories of C. S. Peirce. We summarize the key features of a semiotic model of the Trinity, based on observed parallels between Peirce's categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness and Christian thinking about, respectively, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We test and extend the semiotic model (...) by exploring how Peirce's taxonomy of signs offers a new approach to theological reflection on the Incarnation. This leads to a novel way of framing scientific questions about human evolution in semiotic terms and to a new approach to theological anthropology. Finally, we use the semiotic model of the Trinity as the basis of a trinitarian approach to the theology of creation according to which the semiotic processes that are fundamental to life and to human behavior and cognition may be understood as “vestiges of the Trinity in creation.”. (shrink)

Papers presented at a conference held at the University of Notre Dame in April 1986.

Abstract. Augustine, and following him some major theologians of the early Christian church, noted the apparent discrepancies between the first two chapters of Genesis and suggested an interpretation for these chapters significantly different from the literal. After examining a selection of the relevant texts, we shall follow the later fortunes of this interpretation in brief outline, figuring in particular an unlikely trio: Suarez, St. George Mivart, and Thomas Henry Huxley. Moral: Darwinian theory might plausibly be construed as implementing, unawares, a (...) suggestion from that other Christian tradition. (shrink)

We introduce a two-part collection of articles (Part 2 to appear in the September 2010 issue) exploring a possible new research program in the field of science and religion. At the center of the program lies an attempt to develop a new theology of nature drawing on the philosophy of C. S. Peirce. Our overall idea is that the fundamental structure of the world is exactly that required for the emergence of meaning and truth-bearing representation. We understand the emergence of (...) a capacity to interpret an environment to be important to the emergence of life, and we see the subsequent history of biological evolution as a story of increasing capacities for meaning making and meaning seeking. Theologically, we understand God to be the ground of all such meaning making and the ultimate goal of the universe's emerging capacity for interpreting signs. Here we explain our reasons for seeking a new metaphysical framework in which science and theology may each find a home. We survey the contributions to the two-part collection, and we suggest that the interdisciplinary collaboration from which these have arisen may serve as a methodological model for the field of science and religion. (shrink)