RT Article
T1 The Agencies of God’s Word and Spirit: Modern Science as a “Sacred Reminder”
JF Religions
VO 15
IS 3
A1 Kaiser, Christopher B. 1941-
LA English
PB MDPI
YR 2024
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1883848490
AB In this essay, I argue that modern science can function as a source of “sacred reminders” for aspects of Christian theology, like the doctrine of the Trinity, that are not normally engaged with in the empirical world. This approach is an alternative to the usual ways of relating scientific and theological endeavors in terms of conflict, separation, or consonance. I demonstrate this by beginning with the thoughts of two representative physicists (John Archibald Wheeler and Steven Hawking), particularly focusing on a fundamental distinction they make about the underlying ideal of the physical sciences. Noting a striking similarity of this distinction with some of the biblical imagery of God’s Word and Spirit, I review biblical texts along these lines to show partial continuity with the groundbreaking ideas of our physicists, and to show how they can be generalized to include (a) levels of organization beyond those of physics; (b) intensive, localized agencies of Word and Spirit as well as the more extensive agencies suggested their ideas; and (c) the commissioning agency of God the Father. A review of the theology of Irenaeus shows that these distinctions in biblical imagery were developed in the early Church and played an important role in early Trinitarian theology.
K1 Irenaeus of Lyons
K1 Sanctification
K1 Incarnation
K1 Theophanies
K1 Divine Revelation
K1 image and likeness of God
K1 levels of organization
K1 economic Trinity
K1 God’s Word and Spirit
K1 Donald Walhout
K1 laws of nature
K1 Stephen Hawking
K1 John Archibald Wheeler
K1 goals of scientific endeavor
DO 10.3390/rel15030367