Cosmology, Evolution and Resurrection Hope: Theology and Science in Creative Mutual Interaction

Cosmology, Evolution, and Resurrection Hope is a collection of lectures presented by theologian and physicist Robert John Russell at the fifth annual Goshen Conference on Religion and Science, and Russell’s discussions of related topics with conference participants.

In his lectures Russell develops three themes at the cutting edge of theology and science. In the first lecture he explores an often overlooked topic: the creative role of theology in the rise of contemporary natural science as evidenced in the construction of Big Bang and steady state cosmologies and the resulting debates over them. In the second lecture he turns to the problem of “natural evil”–suffering, disease, death and extinction in nature–arguing that the most compelling response to evil is a theology of redemption that embraces all of nature. In the third lecture he explores redemption through the cross and resurrection of Jesus, opening the greatest challenge to Christian theology today: the conflict between Christian eschatology and the future of the universe according to science. By placing eschatology and cosmology into a relation of creative mutual interaction, Russell believes that eschatology can begin to address this challenge and in turn it can raise potentially fruitful questions that might lead to new directions in scientific research.

What we find here will penetrate our thoughts when we believe we can rest comfortably with our present view of “religion and science.”

Table of Contents

Editor’s Preface

Lectures

Lecture 1: Fruitful Interactions
Lecture 2: Natural Theodicy and New Creation
Lecture 3: Resurrection, Eschatology and Cosmology

Sunday Worship

If These Stones Could Speak

Discussion

General Theories / Structure

Initial Time

Comparing Science and Religion

God in the Equations

Theory of Everything

Falsification

Hoyle and Biology

Judeo-Christian Science Roots

Supernatural Explanations

Reductionism, Boundaries, and Free Will

Boundaries of Science

Theodicy and Natural Evil

General Theodicy Resources

Evil and Eschatology

Cosmic Redemption

Suffering and the New Creation

God’s Love and Complexity

Limits on Freedom

Boundaries of Natural Evil

Biological Predation and the Fall

Suffering and the Grace of the Cross

Death of a Child

Eschatology and New Creation

Physical Eschatology

Future of the Universe and Entropy

Emergence and Monism

Multiple Eschatologies

Teaching and Science / Interfaith Dialogues

Communities and the New Creation
 

Index