The classic study, which establishes a sound theological base for the future of philosophical science.

My personal relation with Polanyi, discussions with him in Oxford, contribution to the International Academy of the Philosophy of Science, the relevance of his innovative thought for Christian worship and theology, Magda and Michael in Oxford, the role of his literary executor.

My personal relation with Polanyi, discussions with him in Oxford, contribution to the International Academy of the Philosophy of Science, the relevance of his innovative thought for Christian worship and theology, Magda and Michael in Oxford, the role of his literary executor.

In his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Karl Barth explains that grace is not to be viewed as something cheap for it is costly both for God and for man. Ironically, grace becomes costly because of how it is unconditionally free and because of how it is achieved only when we are justified in Jesus Christ. Since we are all under God's mercy and since we are freely justified through grace, all men — regardless of whether they are (...) bad or good, whether they practice religion, and other such aspects — are perceived to be equal as they are all saved by grace alone. For God, this grace is perceived to be considerably costly since grace is achieved through Christ's blood. On the other hand, for man, all the achievements and possessions of man rely greatly on grace. (shrink)

In this world which has come to be through God's creative Word, ecumenical activity occurs within time and space which are both brought about as functions of conditional events and holders of the immanent order to the world. God placed man in this world, and He had made Himself known throughout this time and space. In this world, man was granted with certain skills so that he may be able to utilize the world, enjoy it, and have a certain degree (...) of control over it and its other elements so that praise and worship may be brought to God. This is also the same world wherein God had sent His Son to express the Father's love and so that man may be able to be in communion with God. As such, not only did God create the world, He had also been able to establish the world's relation to Himself. In this world, we see that the Church and the science community coexist and are both in quest of understanding the various structures of space and time while attempting to understand the different forms of human speech and thought. (shrink)

In this book, Professor Torrance calls for 'a return to theological rationality': theological thinking must not be a construction of man's making but controlled and conditioned by the nature of its Object, God, the supreme reality. From this approach the author analyses the 'Eclipse of God' and relates his position to the costly grace of God in Christ.

Everything about us today tells us that we live in a world which will be increasingly dominated by empirical and theoretic science. This is the world in which the Church lives and proclaims its message about Jesus Christ. It is not an alien world, for it is in this world of space and time that God has planted us. He made the universe and endowed man with gifts to investigate and understand it. Just as he made life to produce itself, (...) so he has made the universe with man as an essential constituent in it, that it may bring forth and articulate knowledge of itself. Regarded in this light the pursuit of science is one of the ways in which man exercises the dominion in the earth which he was given at his creation. That is how, for example, Francis Bacon understood the work of human science, as man's obedience to God. Science is a religious duty, while man as scientist can be spoken of as the priest of creation , whose task it is to interpret the books of nature, to understand the universe in its wonderful structures and harmonies, and to bring it all into orderly articulation, so that it fulfils its proper end as the vast theatre of glory in which the creator is worshipped and praised. Nature itself is dumb, but it is man's part to bring it to word, to be its mouth through which the whole universe gives voice to the glory and majesty of the living God. (shrink)

Intrinsic to rigorous knowledge of God is the recognition that positive theological concepts and statements about God arising under the compelling claims of God's reality upon the human mind must have an open revisable structure. A similar combination of critical realism and ontological openness is apparent in the profound change that has taken place in the rational structure of rigorous science from the radical dualism and closed causal system of classical mechanics to the unifying world view and open dynamic field‐theories (...) of modern physics. It is argued that the intersection of theological and natural science in their epis‐temological foundations can enhance their ontological commitment and heuristic thrust. (shrink)

Through faith we understand that the worlds were made by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear By faith we understand that the universe was framed by God's command, so that the visible came forth from the invisible.

This chapter attempts to look into a number of epistemological issues that are of significance to modern thought. The title of this chapter is adopted from Martin Buber's book wherein he drew attention to some of the key issues in what is referred to as the ‘new theology’ of Harry Williams, Pail Van Buren, and other such theologians, and also in William Hamilton and Thomas Altizer's ‘God is dead’ theology. As Buber asserts that the eclipse is something that concerns our (...) eyes and the sun, and not the sun itself, the eclipse of God that this chapter attempts to explain involves our own selfhood. The main problem faced by new theologians entails how they are not able to differentiate between God and their own subjectivity. This chapter looks into various controversies such as Gnosticism, Arianism, and other debates regarding the knowledge of God. (shrink)

In developing our actual knowledge, we do not utilize authentic knowledge in looking into epistemology and on the ground of theory. It is also unlikely that we will be able to identify measures for answering the question ‘How can we know God?’ and use the answers in further investigation and explanation of what we know. As such, we may be able to develop an epistemology of God when we have considered our actual knowledge of God since form cannot be separated (...) from method nor from content. God enables us to know Him through how he is able to present Himself to us as an object of knowing and through how we are able to form relationships with Him. This chapter attempts to look into the formal and non-formal aspects of knowledge so that we may arrive at the epistemology of the Spirit. (shrink)

When a posteriori science came into view during the 16th century and had experienced classical developments during the 17th century, this modern science was referred to as dogmatic science. This is because an inductive discovery method that is directed by inquiry took the place of deducting from abstract principles, and because this science enabled various improvements in the real knowledge of the universe. The notion of acquiring ‘dogmatic’ thought was brought about by the differentiation given by the Greeks between the (...) ‘sceptics’ who asked several academic questions and the ‘dogmatics’ who seek to find positive results to these questions. As such, dogmatic science was utilized in analysing the new physics that encompassed a particular field of reality. (shrink)

The ability to attain the agreement of someone from whom we differ regarding a particular matter is referred to as persuasion, but certain differences may be identified in terms of how such may be achieved. People may be persuaded through convincing them and getting them to agree to what we say or believe in, or through meddling with their feelings so that the desired response may be manipulated and brought about. Persuasion generally stimulates a certain belief and that may be (...) furthered to a commitment that deals more with rational judgement. Theological persuasion is fundamentally concerned with the former, yet the latter is also not without a certain amount of significance. This chapter looks into how this type of persuasion involves a triadic relation in communication and in rationality. (shrink)

Recently, theology has been put under pressures by certain mechanistic concepts which resulted from the Newtonian era of science — dogmatic empiricism and dogmatic scientism. A number of theologians and biblical scholars discussed phenomenology and existentialism. However, such efforts were to no avail since these were done in the context of a historical relativism wherein Jesus continued to disappear from their observations. Also, others relied mostly on sociology and cultural expressionism in which they had to face the rifts that came (...) about between historic Christianity and modern culture. As such, several Christians often experienced certain degrees of confusion and irrationality toward their religion since the Church establishes the divide between experience and theology. Theology was thus viewed to be somehow detached from the reality the living God has furthered into its estrangement from men. (shrink)