10 Shirelake Close
Oxford, OX1 1SN.
kevin.sharpe@tui.edu
25 July 2003.

Re: Query for Science of God

Dear

To what is theology responsible? Tradition or new insight? Institutional church or humanity at large? Spiritual or everyday experience? Revelation or scientific findings? Science of God suggests how to do theology without separating it from science. Two books, Discerning the Mystery by Andrew Louth and Axiomatics and Dogmatics by John Carnes, represent the majority of non-fundamentalist approaches to theology’s method in the light of science. For Louth, science is not all it is cracked up to be and theology ought to follow a nonempirical method. For Carnes, theology should be empirical over spiritual experience and conform to the sciences over other domains. Both approaches fail because they separate theology from the scientific method − the organ of truth in our society − or create a domain for theology exclusive of the sciences. Neither of these scenarios allows theology to speak helpfully to the majority of modern people and to the future we need to build. Theology ought to be empirical, both in terms of what it says about the world and in what it says about God and God’s relationship with the world. Therein lies the science of God.

Science of God outlines views about the method of theology and critiques the current science-theology dialogue. Then it poses the above challenge to method, offering and applying an original answer, a way truer to the scientific and spiritual yearnings of practitioners. It thus forwards discussions in science and theology, theological method, and systematic theology.

I was born in 1950 in New Zealand, lived in the United States for 16 years, and now split my time between Oxford, England, and Harrington Park, New Jersey. I am a professor in the Graduate College of The Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, a non-traditional learning-at-a-distance program where I supervise and advise doctoral students, and am a member of Harris Manchester College, Oxford University. My academic background includes doctorates in mathematics and in religious studies.

My interest lies in the relationship between spiritual thought and science. I have published three books (Sleuthing the Divine: The Nexus of Science and Spirit; David Bohm’s World: New Science and New Religion; and From Science to an Adequate Mythology), have edited several more, and written many articles and academic papers. I founded, published, and edited the magazine, Science & Spirit, and I edit the Fortress Press series, ‘Theology and the Sciences’. Other books await publishers: Love and Happiness: Spiritual Thought in the Light of Behavioural Genetics and Neurochemistry, Happier and Spiritual: A Spiritual Approach to Life Essential for Sustained Happiness, and Natural Morality: Reaping Our Innate Rewards.

Thank you for your attention. I enclose a SASE and look forward to your response (though it’s often quicker to email me); if you wish, I can send a proposal for your perusal.

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Sharpe.