98 - Creation and the History of Science

Creation and the History of Science
By Christopher Kaiser
Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1991. 316 pp. $17.95.

In much of the current discussion on how theology should relate to science in a postmodern world, the historical dimension of the evolution and the history of ideas of this problem is very often sadly lacking. In this timely book (part of the History of Christian Theology series edited by Paul Avis), Christopher Kaiser, Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Western Theological Seminary, focuses precisely on this important issue. Kaiser offers a quite remarkable and comprehensive survey of the historical route the relationship between the theology of creation and the history of science has taken. He convincingly shows that the themes of creation and cosmology have always formed a major context for the interaction of theology and the sciences. As a result, theology has drawn on the philosophical cosmologies of the ancient world and the scientific discoveries of modern times. In its turn, natural science has been profoundly influenced by theological presuppositions.

Beginning with the early Christian Fathers, Kaiser covers a vast field when he moves on through the recovery of Aristotle's thought in medieval times and the beginnings of the modern scientific method in the Renaissance, Reformation, and the Enlightenment, to the post-Newtonian mechanics of the nineteenth century. He concludes with an assessment of the theological implications of the views of Einstein and Bohr, the founders of twentieth-century physics. The book ends by pointing to the challenge of a new era in which scientists operate without having to presuppose the Christian idea of creation at all.

Precisely at this point, however, my only really serious criticism of this otherwise excellent book surfaces. Nowhere, not even in the concluding

99 - Creation and the History of Science

section, does the author link his quite amazing grasp of the history of the theology and science problem to the way the evolution of the history of this problem, in fact, prefigures all-important imaginative paradigm shifts in contemporary philosophy of science. This could indeed restrict the epistemological impact of the long history of the relationship between science and theological reflection on challenges to this problem within a postmodern, historicist context. As a result, contemporary philosophers of science and their very relevant attempts to deal with challenging issues like progress, pluralism, historicism, realism, and anti-realism are left out in the cold.

Kaiser does show-and this is especially important in the light of current debates on the possibility of a postmodern, holistic epistemology-that an underlying belief in the essential unity of all knowledge (not just scientific knowledge) goes back as far as early Jewish and Christian responses to Greek science. To this, he correctly adds the three most significant themes in the history of the Christian idea of creation that have directly, and later indirectly, influenced the theology and science discussion: the comprehensibility of the world, the unity of heaven and earth, and the relative autonomy of nature. Indeed, these roots of the historic idea of creation later indirectly functioned as epistemological and methodological "remnants," which played a crucial role in the foundation of twentieth-century physics in the work of its two principal founders, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr.

Personally, however, I never really felt comfortable with the way these and other important influences are depicted as contributions of the "creationist tradition" to the history of science. In spite of Kaiser's assurance that the so-called creationist tradition is not to be confused with what we have come to know as "creation science" or "creationism, " I still find the term "creationist tradition" to be historically so heavily theory-laden that I prefer terminology like the "history of the idea of creation" instead.

Kaiser's analysis of the ways in which theological considerations influenced the development of natural science in the late Middle Ages and, thus, prepared the way for the rise of modern science during the Renaissance and Reformation is truly excellent. Especially noteworthy is his careful analysis of the way in which the modern separation of science and theology was already anticipated in two opposing theological traditions that started to develop during the twelfth century. He also very convincingly shows that the historical relationship between theology and science was never one of direct causation. Theology neither impeded nor caused the rise of modern science. Rather, the two reacted to changes in each, making changes in the other more feasible. Those of us taking part in the current theology and science debate will do well to heed the epistemological implications of this insight.

Kaiser correctly argues that it is beyond dispute that the history of the idea of creation made significant contributions to the rise and the

100 - Creation and the History of Science

development of both medieval and classical science. It seems to be equally clear, however, that the triumph in the nineteenth century of individualism in religion and professionalism in the sciences had severely reduced the likelihood that the twentieth century could ever be embedded in a similar theological paradigm. For theologians involved in this discussion, this should form the ultimate challenge: finding a model of rationality that can adequately deal with the fact that, although the idea of creation is no longer assumed by most scientists in their work, the values embodied and transmitted by this idea live on in the minds and lives of scientists, often even in the absence of personal religious faith. Constructing this kind of model of rationality will not only challenge the explanatory commitments of both theologians and scientists, but it could help us to show convincingly that no crucial scientific idea or discovery need ever be logically incompatible with a carefully and critically constructed idea of God.

Kaiser's book will be of great value in our quest for this kind of intelligibility. The impressive and vast amount of historical material in the book would have been better served, however, by an additional introduction to the contemporary problem of relating theology and science. Furthermore, the fact that each chapter provides material for additional reading is very helpful and somewhat makes up for the puzzling fact that, in spite of the wealth of information Kaiser provides, there is no direct access possible to original (or any other) sources by way of either footnotes or direct references.

Wentzel Van Huyssteen
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey