Natural Theology in the 21st Century, 2021 IRC Conference

15 July 19:30 to 17 July 18:00
Online
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"NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE 21st CENTURY"
Oxford, 15-17 July 2021

 

With generous support from the Issachar Fund

This event, which was originally scheduled for 16-18 July 2020, was run as an online event in 2021 given the ongoing pandemic. The next scheduled physical IRC conference is the 2022 Conference, planned for Thursday evening 14 July to Saturday evening 16 July 2022. The theme will be the work of Alister McGrath, who will be retiring as the Andreas Idreos Chair of Science and Religion in summer 2022.

 

FREE PDF OF CONFERENCE HANDBOOK:

> 2021 IRC Conference Handbook (updated)

Thursday 15 July (evening only)

All these events will be online via Zoom

6:30pm

Zoom meeting open

7:30pm

PLENARY PUBLIC LECTURE

Iain McGilchrist (University of Oxford)

Hemispheric Asymmetry and 
the Approach to the Divine

9:00pm

Finish

Friday 16 July

All these events will be online via Zoom

8:45am

Zoom meeting open

 

9:00am

PLENARY LECTURE

Olivera Petrovich (Oxford Neuroscience, 
Department of Experimental Psychology)

The Naturalness of Natural Theology: 
A Psychological Approach

 

10:30am

Break

 

11:00am

PARALLEL SHORT PAPERS I (THREE STREAMS)

 

 

STREAM A

 

11:00am

An Evaluation of The Impact of Gene-Editing Tools on Natural Theology

Bleacher, Jonathan

 

11:30am

Cognitive Science of Religion: 
An Invitation to Expand the 
Philosophy of Religion

de Smedt, 
Johan

 

12:00pm

The Significance of the Oneiric for Natural Theology

Deman, 
Isaak

 

12:30pm

A Convergence of Minds: 
How Simon Conway Morris Revived The Thought Of Teilhard De Chardin

Hart,
Seth

 

 

STREAM B

 

11:00am

“If Evil exists, God Exists”: 
Three Theistic Arguments from Evil

Echavarría, Agustín

 

11:30am

Fine-Tuning and Design: A Step Back to More Fundamental Considerations

Hamri, 
Soufiane

 

12:00pm

Modal Status and A Posteriori Arguments for God’s Existence

Kremers, 
Philipp

 

12:30pm

The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God: 
A 21st Century Defence

Loke, 
Andrew

 

 

STREAM C

 

11:00am

Does Reichenbachian Meta-induction Justify Induction – 
Or Maybe Something Else?

Pitts, 
J. Brian

 

11:30am

Why Natural Theology need not be Rational in order to be Reasonable

Premkumar, Finney

 

12:00pm

Ungodly Nature: 
Changes in Accounts of Nature and God from Aquinas to Descartes that Undermine Natural Theology

Sweeney, Matthew

 

12:30pm

How to Read the Book of Nature: Maximus’ Book of Nature and Methodology in the Theology-Science Dialogue

Torrance, Eugenia

 

1:00pm

Lunch Break

 

1:30pm

PARALLEL SHORT PAPERS II (THREE STREAMS)

 

 

STREAM A

 

1:30pm

CSR Exacerbates the Problem of Divine Hiddenness

Bennett, Christopher

 

2:00pm

Perseverance in Faith. Can the Mars Rover Help Us Find a Further Dimension to Natural Theology?

Kirby, 
Mike

 

2:30pm

Defending the Value of the Biological Design Evidence for Future Natural Theology

Kojonen, 
Rope

 

3:00pm

The Possibility of a Scientific Morality within a Natural Theology 
or a Theology of Nature

Kumarasingham,
Adrian

 

 

STREAM B

 

1:30pm

The Probability of Desire: A Bayesian Exploration of C.S. Lewis’ ‘Argument from Desire’

Simek, 
Slater

 

2:00pm

About useful and useless meanings of causality, purpose and order to support God´s existence arguments based on scientific perspectives

Velázquez Fernández, Hector

 

2:30pm

The Ambiguity Argument for Agnosticism and the View From Nowhere in Natural Theology

Wilczewska, Sylwia

 

3:00pm

God, Nature, Reason and Experience

Younis, 
Aaron

 

 

STREAM C

1:30pm

Remembering the Jews, Expunging the Queers: Natural Law in the Wake of Auschwitz

Benson, 
Bruce Ellis

 

2:00pm

Storyteller God: The Postmodern Natural Theology of George MacDonald

Evans, 
Robert

 

2:30pm

Miracles and Necessitarian 
Laws of Nature

Fatona,
Buki

 

3:00pm

The Possibility of Natural Theology in a World of Horrendous Evils

Ooi, 
Daryl

 

3:30pm

Break

 

4:00pm

PLENARY LECTURE

Helen de Cruz (St Louis University)

A Taste for the Infinite: 
What Evolution can tell us about Belief in God

 

5:30pm

Finish

 

Saturday 17 July

10:45am

Zoom meeting open

 

11:00am

PARALLEL SHORT PAPERS III (THREE STREAMS)

 

 

STREAM A

 

11:00am

Quantum Mechanics and Salvation: 
Re-examining Soteriological Change in Light of 21st Century Physics

Qureshi-Hurst, Emily

 

11:30am

The Distorting Natural (a)Theology of The Selfish Gene

Skogholt, Christoffer

12:00pm

Evolution and the Applicability of Mathematics in Contemporary Physics

Stokes, Mitch

12:30pm

Computational Theology and 
Natural Theology

Vestrucci, Andrea

 

STREAM B

 

11:00am

Semi-Reformed Natural Theology

Guillon, Jean-Baptiste

 

11:30am

The Not-So-New Natural Theologies? The Need for Historical Perspectives on Natural Theology in the Modern Age

Klaeren, George

12:00pm

Substantial Form and Actus Essendi. Avenues and Obstacles on the Way from Philosophy of Science to 
Natural Theology

Lazzari, Edmund

12:30pm

Augmented Reality and Theology: A New Analogy for an “Integral” Expansion

Martini, Alessandro

 

STREAM C

11:00am

“Teacher of Perfect Wisdom”. Calvin’s Pneumatological Natural Theology

Butler, Geoffrey

 

11:30am

 Revealing by Concealing: Revelation in Nature, Divine Hiddenness, and Religious Imagination Juurikkala,
Oskari

12:00pm

Irreducible Agent and its role in 
Natural Theology

Shahinnia, Niloofar

12:30pm

 

SPARE

1:00pm

Lunch Break

 

1:30pm

PLENARY LECTURE

Alister McGrath (University of Oxford)

Natural Theology: 
An Interface between Science and Religion?

 

3:00pm

Conference ends

 

 

Further information on the conference themes:

Natural theology investigates what we can know or not know about the existence and essence of God and divine revelation on the basis of what we can know about nature. Developments and discoveries in our explorations of nature (e.g., Aristotelianism, Copernican revolution, Newtonian physics, Kant’s Critique, Darwinian Evolution, quantum mechanics, and Big Bang cosmology) have enriched and challenged the investigations of natural theology throughout its history. Likewise, discoveries and revolutions in our understanding of nature in the 21stcentury (e.g., AI, Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, fundamental physics, etc.) will have the potential to undermine or enrich future investigations in natural theology. What questions will natural theology need to confront in the 21st century? How can these insights enrich the engagement of religious communities, such as Christian churches, with the wider culture?

Looking backward, what lessons do the future enquiries of natural theology need to learn from its past enquiries? What are the enduring achievements, catastrophic failures, and  tangential distractions from the history of natural theology? What place will cosmological, ontological, design, moral, and other arguments for God’s existence have in its future investigations? What were the major contributions of the past hundred years of honorary lectures confronting questions in natural theology (e.g., Gifford, Hulsean, Bampton lectures) Looking forward, what challenges from philosophy and the sciences must natural theology confront, from numerous forms of naturalism, to metaphysics of dispositions and grounding, second-person perspective, machine learning, CRISPR, …? Are “nature” and the “natural” still viable concepts for 21st century enquiries, including those of natural theology? 

What is or should be the scope of natural theology? Is it strictly concerned with evidence and arguments based in nature known apart from appeals to revelation or numinous experiences? Or, should it be construed broadly to include investigations concerning historical events, including those detailed in sacred and religious texts? What is the relationship between natural theology and the investigations of supernatural theology, philosophy of religion, analytic theology, theology of nature, and apologetics? Is natural theology “natural”? Is the very project of natural theology guilty of the charge of ontotheology? What place should metaphor and analogy have in natural theology? What role do narrative arguments, just-so stories, genealogies, and meta-narratives play in theists’, atheists’, and agnostics’ contributions to natural theology? Can anyone—theist, agnostic, or atheist—engage the enquiries of natural theology or atheology from a neutral point of view? How might these questions be engaged by religious communities seeking to engage a wider culture and cultivate the reasoned faith of their members?