Science Of God

Is theology responsible to tradition or new insight? Institutional church or humanity at large? Spiritual or everyday existence? Revelation or scientific findings? In his new bookScience of God:Truth in the Age of Science, Kevin Sharpe proposes a method for doing theology which does not divorce it from the practical applications of science. Not only does this work establish that theology ought to be empirical in what it says about the world and God's relationship to it, but it also outlines a clear method for doing this. Science and theology can each share the same empirical method: when each attempts a description of any part of reality, it is relying on its own essential assumptions, or lens. When applied to theology, the method assumes the existence of God and then seeks the nature of God using falsifiable and verifiable techniques. Starting with the sciences that examine happiness—particularly biology, genetics, psychology, and social psychology—Science of God seeks to understand the spiritual nature of humans and, through it, the nature of God.

In his new book Science of God, Kevin Sharpe proposes a method for doing theology which does not divorce it from the practical applications of science. Not only does this work establish that theology ought to be empirical in what it says about the world and God's relationship to it, but it also outlines a clear method for doing this. Science and theology can each share the same empirical method: when each attempts a description of any part of reality, it is relying on its own essential assumptions, or lens. When applied to theology, the method assumes the existence of God and then seeks the nature of God using falsifiable and verifiable techniques. Starting with the sciences that examine happiness—particularly biology, genetics, and psychology—Science of God seeks to understand the spiritual nature of humans and, through it, the nature of God.

Kevin Sharpe is Chair of the Arts and Sciences Concentration, Graduate College, at Union Institute and University and a member of the faculty at Oxford University. He is author ofHas Science Displaced the Soul? Debating Love and Happiness with Rebecca Bryant.