Ramified Natural Theology in Science and Religion

Rodney Holder was Course Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge, UK, before retiring in 2013, and is a Fellow Commoner of St Edmund's College, Cambridge. He has published widely in the fields of science and religion and natural theology including the book Big Bang, Big God: A Universe Designed for Life? (2013) and articles in peer reviewed journals such as The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Theology and Science, and Philosophia Christi.

This book offers a rationale for a new 'ramified natural theology' that is in dialogue with both science and historical-critical study of the Bible. Traditionally, knowledge of God has been seen to come from two sources, nature and revelation. However, a rigid separation between these sources cannot be maintained, since what purports to be revelation cannot be accepted without qualification: rational argument is needed to infer both the existence of God from nature and the particular truth claims of the Christian faith from the Bible. Hence the distinction between 'bare natural theology' and 'ramified natural theology.'

The book begins with bare natural theology as background to its main focus on ramified natural theology. Bayesian confirmation theory is utilised to evaluate competing hypotheses in both cases, in a similar manner to that by which competing hypotheses in science can be evaluated on the basis of empirical data. In this way a case is built up for the rationality of a Christian theist worldview.

Addressing issues of science, theology and revelation in a new framework, this book will be of keen interest to scholars working in Religion and Science, Natural Theology, Philosophy of Religion, Biblical Studies, Systematic Theology, and Science and Culture.

This book offers a rationale for a new 'ramified natural theology' that is in dialogue with both science and historical-critical study of the Bible.

1 Theology as a Scientific Discipline: The Place of Natural Theology and Ramified Natural Theology; 2 Reason and Religion: The Rôle of Natural Theology; 3 Natural Theology and Modern Cosmology: The Cosmological and Design Arguments; 4 Moving on from Natural Theology: Why We Need Ramified Natural Theology; 5 Pascal's Pensées and Butler's Analogy: Foreshadowing Ramified Natural Theology; 6 The Rationality of Belief in Miracles; 7 Ramified Natural Theology and Evidence for Christian Claims about Christ: Jesus' Miracles; 8 Jesus and Prophecy; 9 Ramified Natural Theology in Action: Outline of the Argument for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus; 10 On the Third Day he Rose Again: Bayesian Methodologies Applied to the Resurrection of Jesus; 11 Towards a Fuller Picture: The Fruits of Ramified Natural Theology; Bibliography