The Natural Sciences as an ancilla theologiae nova: Alister E. Mcgrath’s A Scientific Theology

The Thomist 69 (2005): 127-52 THE NATURAL SCIENCES AS AN ANCILLA THEOLOGIAE NOVA: ALISTER E. MCGRATH'S A SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY JAMES E KEATING Providence College Providence, Rhode Island LISTER E MCGRATH'S three-volume A Scientific Theology offers a major contribution to the field of theological method and ought to serve as a stimulus for theologians attentive to the necessity of reconceiving the theological task for each age. While McGrath writes from an explicitly evangelical viewpoint-which he defines as one "nourished and governed at all points by Holy Scripture"-his project is intended to appeal to theologians across confessional divides. The ecumenical scope is dear from the wide range of conversation partners drawn upon in fashioning "a principled negotiation between classic Christian theology and the working assumptions and methods of the natural sciences, based on a unitary vision of reality which is grounded and sustained by the specifics of the Christian religion" (l:xi). This "scientific theology" takes the natural sciences as an ancilla theologiae nova and relies upon their vibrancy and universal repute to serve contemporary theology in the way Platonism served patristic theology and Aristotle's thought served Scholasticism. Today's theological reader is, of course, inundated with books relating science and theology and it is important to identify at the outset why these volumes deserve special notice" McGrath is certainly well situated for his task. Not only is he an established theologian and historian of theology, he holds a doctorate in 127 128 JAMES F. KEATING molecular biophysics from Oxford. Yet this combination of scientific and theological training is not especially rare-John Polkinghorne and Ian Barbour being two outstanding examples. As with these authors, McGrath offers his readers the expected tutorials on the intersections of theology and science, and most will benefit from an increased familiarity with mathematics, genetics, evolutionary biology, quantum physics, and astronomy. Although impressive, it is not the science that makes McGrath's work so remarkable, but rather its scrupulous attentiveness to the theological problematic embedded in the idea of theological handmaidens, scientific or other. McGrath knows his theological history well enough to appreciate how easily servants become masters within the house of theology. Thus, he matches enthusiasm for the theological usefulness of the sciences with a "Barthian" concern for the precariousness of theology's proper dependence on divine revelation. These convictions converge in McGrath's daim that the rationality at work in science provides theology with "strategies" for maintaining the priority of revelation in its own methodology. His confidence in these strategies is such that he employs them to construct a natural theology that can appeal to those who deny revelation without thereby denying revelation itself. The interest in McGrath's project abides, therefore, in his attempt to enter into dialogue with the sciences not despite theology's attachment to divine revelation, but in the service of it. Given the conditions McGrath sets, it is upon the success of this difficult balance that his scientific theology stands or falls. Each ofthe volumes in the trilogy-Nature (1), Reality (2), and Theory (3)-focuses on a concern common to theologians and scientists. It is important to note, however, that McGrath's interest is not directed toward specific scientific claims about the world. Linking Christian theology to a particular scientific theory compromises theology's proper autonomy and fails to recognize the provisional character of aH scientific claims. The damage done to the gospel's credibility by the churches' stubborn adherence to discredited theories of the solar system and the emergence of species speaks for itself. A far wiser approach, according to MCGRATH'S SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 129 McGrath, is to focus on the methods and presuppositions involved in the work of science in order to show how a consideration of these can illuminate aspects of the contemporary theological enterprise. Accordingly, his emphasis is on the history of science and the philosophical theories that best explain that history. I. NATURE The first volume, Nature, treats the most obvious shared reference point for theology and science and the one that has proved the most problematic for modern theology. The tension arises from the widespread assumption that the natural sciences possess a unique capacity to deliver...