Ernan McMullin’s Thought on Science and Theology: An Appreciation

The thought of Ernan McMullin on the relationship between science and theology can be summarized with a word that he himself used: consonance. We briefly describe this epistemological proposal, and we show a concrete instance of its application by way of a short analysis of one of McMullin’s interdi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Open theology
Authors: Barzaghi, Amerigo (Author) ; Corcó Juviñá, Josep 1966- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: De Gruyter 2015
In: Open theology
Year: 2015, Volume: 1, Issue: 1, Pages: 512–523
Further subjects:B Ernan McMullin
B Consonance
B evolutionary contingency
B Natural Theology
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Summary:The thought of Ernan McMullin on the relationship between science and theology can be summarized with a word that he himself used: consonance. We briefly describe this epistemological proposal, and we show a concrete instance of its application by way of a short analysis of one of McMullin’s interdisciplinary works, "Cosmic Purpose and the Contingency of Human Evolution." With the help of the authoritative comment that William Stoeger has made on this paper, we sketch McMullin’s effort to find a consonance between two different claims: the theological one - humans expected - and the evolutionary one - humans unexpected. In this case, consonance is reached by recurring to the classic Augustinian notion of the atemporality of God. We then show how McMullin’s way of interpreting consonance affects the question of the viability of a natural theology in a scientifically informed era. In fact, his distrust of various kinds of natural theology is another crucial aspect of his epistemological framework for interdisciplinary dialogue.
ISSN:2300-6579
Contains:Enthalten in: Open theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1515/opth-2015-0032