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Finding a Way between Science and Religion

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Matthew C. Ogilvie

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Philosophy and Theology, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia
Interests: systematic theology; theological methodology; science and theology; teaching and learning theology online; religion and terrorism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

You are invited to propose a manuscript for a Special Issue of Religions, entitled “Finding a Way between Science and Religion.”

Since the time of Galileo, and even more so since Darwin, religion and science have been conceived as being in conflict. The relationship between them has been seen too often as mutual exclusion, for example, in the rejection of science in some forms of Fundamentalism or the humiliation of religion by science in certain forms of the “New Atheism.”

This Special Issue of Religions seeks contributions from scholars who can go beyond the either/or paradigm of science and religion to a both/and approach. In particular, the Special Issue invites contributions that can propose methodological, philosophical, exegetical, or other ways of bringing together science and religion in a way that does not privilege one above the other, but which advances both.

This Special Issue will encourage the position that “truth does not contradict truth” and will seek ways that the truths of science and the truths of religion/s can be reconciled and work together for the advancement of each other.

Contributions are invited from scholars in theology, religious studies, philosophy, the philosophy of science, or related fields.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400-600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor (matthew.ogilvie@nd.edu.au) or to the Religions editorial office (religions@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editor for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Prof. Dr. Matthew C. Ogilvie
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

religion
theology
science
faith and philosophy

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 298 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Neurology Meets Theology: Charles Sherrington’s Gifford Lectures Then and Now

by Michael A. Flannery

Religions 2023, 14(10), 1310; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14101310 - 19 Oct 2023

Viewed by 1230

Abstract

Charles Scott Sherrington (1857–1952) is widely acclaimed as the most important neurophysiologist in history. He became a legend in his own time, coined the term “synapse”, and in 1932 received the Nobel Prize in medicine for his discoveries on the function of neurons. By the time he presented the Gifford Lectures 1937–38, he represented the best that science had to offer on behalf of the relationship of the mind to the natural world. The lectures, including one never publicly presented, were published as Man on His Nature (1941). Here neurology meets theology at the busy and often treacherous intersection of science and religion. Examining Sherrington’s views in some detail, the standard rendering of Sherrington as a theist cannot be sustained by their contents; he ends up as at least a humanist and perhaps an atheist. Views by neurologists and philosophers of mind some seventy to eighty years later are compared and contrasted with Sherrington’s. Although expectations of a materialist/reductionist answer to the mind/body problem have not been realized, neuroscientist Raymond Tallis appears as a parallel figure to Sherrington: both are clearly naturalistic humanists. A theistic response is presented addressing the mind/body problem from a hylomorphic process theology perspective, along with some comments regarding natural theology in general. In the end, this essay has two complementary aims: (1) to relocate Sherrington’s neurotheology—if it can be called that—in a more appropriate historiographical category; and (2) to offer a viable answer to the mind/body problem. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Finding a Way between Science and Religion)