10,085 research outputs found
A Theological Challenge: Coordinating Biological, Social, and Religious Visions of Humanity
This paper attempts two tasks. First, it sketches how the natural sciences (including especially the biological sciences), the social sciences, and the scientific study of religion can be understood to furnish complementary, consonant perspectives on human beings and human groups. This suggests that it is possible to speak of a modern secular interpretation of humanity (MSIH) to which these perspectives contribute (though not without tensions). MSIH is not a comprehensive interpretation of human beings, if only because it adopts a posture of neutrality with regard to the reality of religious objects and the truth of theological claims about them. MSIH is certainly
an impressively forceful interpretation, however, and it needs to be reckoned with by any perspective on human life that seeks to insert its truth claims into the arena of public debate. Second, the paper considers two challenges that MSIH poses to specifically theological
interpretations of human beings. On the one hand, in spite of its posture of religious neutrality, MSIH is a key element in a class of wider, seemingly antireligious interpretations of humanity, including especially projectionist and illusionist critiques of religion. It is consonance
with MSIH that makes these critiques such formidable competitors for traditional theological interpretations of human beings. On the other hand, and taking the religiously neutral posture of MSIH at face value, theological accounts of humanity that seek to coordinate the insights of MSIH with positive religious visions of human life must find ways to overcome or manage such dissonance as arises. The goal of synthesis is defended as important, and strategies
for managing these challenges, especially in light of the pluralism
of extant philosophical and theological interpretations of human beings, are advocated
The Divine Action Project, 1988–2003
This article explores the state of the art in theories of special divine action by means of a
study of the Divine Action Project (DAP) co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory and the Center
for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley. The basic aim is to introduce the DAP and to
summarize its results, especially as these were compiled in the final “capstone” meeting of the DAP,
and drawing on the published output of the project where possible. The subsidiary aim is to evaluate
criticisms of theories of special divine action developed within the DAP.ye
But consciousness isn't everything.
Comments on an article entitled `No Good News for DATA,' by Norman Lillegard in the Spring 1994 issue of `Cross Currents' magazine. Lillegard's stand that the android Commander Data in `Star Trek' fails to satisfy the biblical conception of persons; Lillegard's presentation of models that espouse functionalist theories of mind; Views of the essence of the human person
Behind, Between, and Beyond Anthropomorphic Models
The plurality of models of ultimate reality is a central problem for religious philosophy. This essay sketches what is involved in mounting comparative inquiries across the plurality of models. In order to illustrate what advance would look like in such a comparative inquiry, an argument is presented to show that highly anthropomorphic models of ultimate reality are inferior to a number of competitors. This paper was delivered as a keynote address during the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God
The State of Science-and-Religion Scholarship At The Turn of the Century
In this keynote address to the 2000 Science and Religion Colloquium, the author not only describes and assesses the state of religion-and-science scholarship at the turn of the century hut also proposes a new approach for guiding it into the new century. After surveying the multifaceted terrain of recent research and identifying significant areas of current activity, Dr. Wildman forwards three theses regarding the future of religion-and-science scholarship. Such scholarship should make itself intelligible to the general public by avoiding methodological debates, employ multi-disciplinary resources in approaching research questions, and adopt a problem-oriented framework in handling complex, contemporary problems
The Significance of the Evolution of Religious Belief and Behavior for Religious Studies and Theology
Intelligent tutoring systems research in the training systems division: Space applications
Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI) is a mature technology used to teach students in a wide variety of domains. The introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology of the field of CAI has prompted research and development efforts in an area known as Intelligent Computer-Aided Instruction (ICAI). In some cases, ICAI has been touted as a revolutionary alternative to traditional CAI. With the advent of powerful, inexpensive school computers, ICAI is emerging as a potential rival to CAI. In contrast to this, one may conceive of Computer-Based Training (CBT) systems as lying along a continuum which runs from CAI to ICAI. Although the key difference between the two is intelligence, there is not commonly accepted definition of what constitutes an intelligent instructional system
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