A Scientific Theology: Reality, Vol. 2 Book

	Preface	xi
Part 3	Reality
7.	Rationality and Knowledge in Theology and the Naturai Sciences	3
	Tradition and objectivity: the polarity of knowledge	5
	The natural sciences and the question of knowledge	11
	The scientific programme: corresponding coherently to reality	14
	The rise and fall of classical foundationalism	20
	Deduction from basic beliefs as the foundation of knowledge?	23
	Experience as the foundation of knowledge?	24
	Frege: the failure of foundationalism in mathematics	27
	Frege and the linguistic turn in philosophy	29
	Does the rejection of classic foundationalism entail relativism?	32
	Systemic metaphors: from foundations to webs	35
	Postliberalism and the foundations of theology: coherent yet ungrounded?	38
	Lindbeck's rejection of foundationalism	42
	Lindbeck's critique of cognitive approaches to theology	43
	Lindbeck's coherentist account of doctrine	46
	Moving on from Lindbeck	52
8.	Natural Theology and the Trans-Traditional Rationality of the Christian Tradition	55
	The Enlightenment: a 'view from nowhere'	57
	Ethnocentrism and rationality	58
	Trans-historical rationality and the history of science	61
	The scandal of particularity and religious authority	62
	Alasdair MacIntyre and the role of tradition	64
	Tradition and the construction of values	68
	On transcending tradition	69
	The role of a natural theology in transcending traditions	72
	Mathematics and trans-traditional rationality	78
	Incarnation and trans-traditional rationality	83
	Natural theology and the trans-traditional religious quest	85
	Natural theology and the trans-traditional sense of wonder	87
	Natural law and the trans-traditional quest for goodness	92
	Basic beliefs within tradition-constituted rationalities	97
	John Milbank and the critique of secular reason: an assessment	102
	Milbank as critic of MacIntyre	103
	Milbank's critique of secular reason	106
	A critique of Milbank: three concerns	109
	Reaffirming the Christian tradition	118
9.	The Foundations of Realism in the Natural Sciences	121
	Realism as the working philosophy of the physical sciences	123
	Introducing realism	126
	Realism and the design of experiments	128
	The nature of scientific realism	130
	Rivals to scientific realism	133
	Idealism	135
	Positivism	139
	Instrumentalism	140
	The case for realism: the critical issues	146
	The distinction between theoretical and observational claims	146
	The laws of nature	153
	Abduction to the best explanation	157
	Classic objections to scientific realism	160
	Radical theory change in the history of science	161
	The underdetermination of theory by evidence	166
	Mathematical realism and the mind of God	170
	Retreating from reality: postmodern anti-realism	177
	Working in Plato's pharmacy	178
	Social constructivism: the strong programme	180
	The Sokal hoax and postmodern interpretations of natural science	188
	After postmodernity--what?	191
10.	Critical Realism: Engaging with a Stratified Reality	195
	On exploring realism	197
	The new realism in the social sciences	198
	Critical realism and the autonomy of theology	200
	Critical realism and Christian spirituality	201
	The variety of critical realisms	202
	American critical realism	203
	Critical realism within the science and religion community	205
	Against reductionism: Roy Bhaskar's critical realism	209
	Realism embraces both natural and social sciences	214
	Epistemology is to be distinguished from ontology	218
	Reality is stratified	219
	Against reductionism in theology--or anything else	224
	The stratification of theological reality: some preliminary comments	226
	The horizontal stratification of theological explanation	231
	Karl Barth on the threefold form of the Word of God	232
	T. F. Torrance on multi-levelled theological reflection and the Trinity	234
	The vertical stratification of theological explanation	238
	Nature	240
	History	241
	Experience	243
11.	The Encounter with Reality: The Contours of a Scientific Theology	245
	Scientific theology as a response to reality	246
	The theological affirmation of reality	247
	Theological anti-realism: Don Cupitt	249
	Theological realism: Karl Barth and T. F. Torrance	257
	Scientific theology as an a posteriori discipline	268
	A posteriori analysis in the natural sciences	271
	The incarnation and a priori notions of God	272
	Luther's theology of the cross as a critique of a priori notions of God	277
	Scientific theology as a response to its distinctive object	279
	Objects, levels and language in the natural sciences	280
	Quantum phenomena: the Heisenberg uncertainty principle	283
	The Barth--Scholz debate over theological science	285
	The nature of the knowledge of God	290
	Scientific theology offers an explanation of reality	294
	Why a scientific theology is Christocentric	297
	Christ and the distinctive nature of the Christian faith	297
	Christ as the foundation of faith	300
	Christ and the coherence of faith: Schleiermacher on the four natural heresies of Christianity	302
	The eastern tradition: scientific theology and Christology	307
	Creation, Christology, eschatology and the observability of God	310
	Moving On: Anticipating the Development of Theory	315
	Bibliography	317
	Index	339