Natural theology

Guest Post: The military, rogue soldiers and the immune system

scienceandbeliefguestauthor2 Comments
Picture1
Regulatory T cells have prevented damage to a transplanted skin graft caused by other immune cells as can be seen by the skin being intact (red) as well as the vessels (green). The blue colour stains all the cells present in the skin. © Sim Tung, 2016

“Are there any supplements I can take to help my immune system?” “Will going vegan boost my immune system? Or what about organic food?” These are just some of the questions I get asked when I tell people I am a PhD candidate in immunology.

Those who aren’t yet bored of hearing about my PhD normally ask heavy questions that require technical answers. After all, how do you explain your field of work without throwing in the big fancy words? I myself can barely understand jobs in Finance or IT – cue Chandler Bing failing to explain ‘data-reconfiguration-and-statistical-analysis’ to his Friends for 10 years.  Anyway, in these moments it feels pretty awesome to see someone get excited and curious about science instead of Love Island. Continue reading →

Book Preview: NT Wright on Science, Jesus, and Natural Theology

Ruth M. Bancewicz2 Comments
buttercup field IMG_2553 crop
© Ruth M. Bancewicz

Few today would argue that we can straightforwardly begin with the natural world and argue our way up to a view of God that corresponds more or less to the Christian one. … Natural theology as popularly conceived, that is, the attempt to reason up to God without the use of revelation, was always a strange and culturally conditioned thought experiment. Most humans do not work like that most of the time. I think—although a forceful presentation of this argument would take many more words than I have space for here—that this contrast of two types of knowledge, that which we have by revelation and that which we have by unaided observation and reason, makes two mistakes. Continue reading →

Searching for Goodness: Natural Theology in Historic Cambridge

Ruth M. Bancewicz2 Comments
9189346123_4d4081ff9b_o
Emmanuel College, Cambridge © Sean Hickin, cropped, Creative Commons BY-NC 2.0

Are ethical values real? According to Dr Louise Hickman, a philosopher and theologian from Newman University, this is the question that drove the ‘natural theology’ discussion in the centuries leading up to Darwin. Louise spoke about this topic at the Faraday Institute this summer, and I will summarise her lecture here in my own words.

Left to our own devices, said the natural theologians, people are capable of developing their own awareness of God and knowledge of him. This knowledge is entirely separate from any belief that God has revealed himself to people in any other way, such as God’s relationship with the people of Israel, or arriving on earth as the person of Jesus Christ. Continue reading →

Discipleship in all of life: Putting faith and science in the blender

Ruth M. Bancewicz3 Comments
3278764814_4d666f44ee_o-crop
Cropped from Morning Prayers by Don Christner. Flickr. (CC BY-ND 2.0)

How much does the natural world feature in the average Christian’s relationship with God? Church leaders often speak about ‘discipleship’, meaning the process of learning what it is to be a Christian and putting that knowledge into practice. The question is, are discipleship and our experience of the created order – trees, water, rocks and stars – held in separate watertight boxes, or are they blended Continue reading →

The Hiddenness of God: An Alternative to ‘Science and Religion’

Ruth M. Bancewicz3 Comments
Freeimages.com/Armand
Freeimages.com/Armand

How does the person of Christ make sense of my experience as a scientist? This is the last in a series of five posts from this year’s Scientists in Congregations conference, the topic of which was ‘Christ and Creation’. In the closing lecture Wilson Poon, who is Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at Edinburgh University, began with this question and suggested that we look to ‘the laboratory of the cross’ for the answer. Continue reading →

Love Me to the Moon?

Ruth M. Bancewicz3 Comments
By ulrikebohr570 – pixabay. Public Domain
By ulrikebohr570 – pixabay. Public Domain

Anyone who was up at around 2 or 3 am on Monday last week might have seen a rare astronomical event. Lunar eclipses happen at least once or twice a year, but this one was unusual because it happened when the moon appeared larger and brighter than at any other point in the month. The next ‘supermoon’ eclipse’ is due in Continue reading →

Charles Raven: Theologian, Naturalist, and a bit of a Rebel

Ruth M. Bancewicz1 Comment
© RM Bancewicz
© RM Bancewicz

Earlier this year I was introduced to a Cambridge professor who appreciated both the wonders of the living world and questions about its wider significance. Charles Raven, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University from 1932-1950, was a keen naturalist and lover of science. In a recent seminar at the Faraday Institute, Ian Randall outlined this unique individual’s contribution to science and religion. Continue reading →