This project will promote science-engaged theology by exposing up to forty-five theologians and philosophers of religion to insights from the philosophy of science through a series of summer seminars. These seminars will explore how philosophical models of concepts like explanation, causation, and evidence can be applied to questions about the nature of the divine, its role in the world, the extent of human freedom, and the shape and structure of the natural order. In addition to the summer schools, we will offer incentives and long-term mentoring programs in order to produce a series of academic papers, some of which will be collected in an edited volume.
Over recent years, there have been many significant advances in philosophy of science---through the study and analysis of scientific practice---which are strongly related to questions in philosophy of religion and theology. However, due to the sociological divide between these areas of research, there is little conversation between these subdisciplines, preventing developments in philosophy of science from coming to bear on big questions in philosophy and religion.
This project, if successful, will close that gap, by specifically targeting the production of novel and insightful approaches to religious questions that integrate insights from philosophy of science. By integrating these concepts into papers that populate contemporary academic literature, we hope to make current conversations about big questions in philosophy and religion more scientifically engaged.
