The Gospel Coalition

 

Peter Harrison, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. xi + 302 pp. £18.99/$26.00.



The discipline of “science and religion” is a burgeoning academic field; it is also somewhat intimidating to outsiders since many of its experts have terminal degrees in both theology and science. Peter Harrison has enlisted a first-rate group of scholars to offer a competent introduction to the field in this Cambridge Companion volume. (Harrison has contributed some very significant monographs in the scholarly debate, e.g., The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science [1998] and The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Modern Science [2007].) The book is divided into three sections: Part I deals with historical prolegomena; Part II tackles examples of how science and religion relate; and the final section engages philosophical issues. There are chapters by noteworthy scholars like John Hedley Brooke, Ronald Numbers, Michael Ruse, Nancey Murphy, David C. Lindberg, Mikael Stenmark, and several others. To be sure, most readers of this journal will find something to disagree with here. Nonetheless, this volume serves as a rich appetizer to a controversial field, introducing hungry readers to the key players, the central debates and theories, and the historical and conceptual questions surrounding the fascinating encounter between science and religion.


Hans Madueme
Covenant College
Lookout Mountain, Georgia, USA


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