Narration and Explanation: The Relationship between Theology and Natural Sciences

If theology takes seriously the confession that God is the Creator of heaven and earth, it cannot affirm a separation of the doctrine of creation from the natural sciences. Such a view ignores the fact that the creation texts of the Bible were composed in the medium of contemporary natural knowledge, as, for example, the use of the ancient oriental lexical science indicates. This historical insight has systematic significance. The separation of theology from the natural sciences cannot be defended on the basis of the biblical creation texts. How, then, should the unavoidable relation between them take place? The controversy between Johann Georg Hamann and Immanuel Kant over the project of a "Physics for Children," shows the path to an appropriate way of relating theology and the natural sciences.