Nature, Science and Religion

The term nature comes from the Latin natura, which is derived from the verb “to be born” (e.g., “natal” comes from the same root). There have been three progressive senses of the English use of the word nature through time (Williams 1983). From the thirteenth century on, nature meant the essential quality or character of something, such as the nature of a person or of mortality. Beginning with the fourteenth century, the word was also used to represent the inherent force directing the world and human beings, as in “the way of nature.” Not until the seventeenth century—relatively recently in English language usage—did the word nature also mean the physical world as a whole. Thus it spans a wide variety of meanings in reference to both humans and biophysical reality.

The question of nature has been at the heart of science-religion dialogue for centuries: it is thus no accident that the term has entered into the titles of important historical works such as God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science (Lindberg and Numbers 1986) or Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion (Brooke and Cantor 1998). Ian Barbour considers nature as historically central to the integration of science and religion, as understood in two distinct ways: natural theology and theology of nature (Barbour 1997, 98-103). Natural theology refers to arguments concerning God’s existence and properties based on empirical inquiry into biophysical nature: nature is a book of God’s works, and thus natural science can tell us about God. A theology of nature, according to Barbour, is built on religious tradition but is open to changes in light of natural science, including scientific discoveries about reality and scientifically-based environmental concern.

Nature also figures centrally in contemporary discussions of science and religion: witness, for example, recent issues of the journal Zygon, in which religious naturalism and “theology coming to terms with evolution” were organizing themes, or annual conferences of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS), with recent themes including “Ecomorality” (2003), “Is Nature Enough? The Thirst for Transcendence” (2002) and “Nurturing Human Nature” (2000).

Despite this wave of interest, the vast majority of these efforts have been limited to selected scientific or religious metaphors or “visions” or nature. In contrast, New Visions of Nature, Science, and Religion includes a spectrum of five contemporary visions of nature and their potential for reconciliation, perhaps even integration, in future. These visions include evolutionary nature, emergent nature, malleable nature, nature as sacred, and nature as culture. The first two of these visions have arisen in the physical, life, and behavioral sciences; the final two have arisen in the social sciences, humanities, and theology, with malleable nature straddling the sciences and humanities. Taken together, these visions represent a broad, balanced scholarly approach toward reconciling nature, science, and religion. Yet given this breadth, these visions overlap but do not immediately fit together; similarly, all have important, but somewhat different, implications for progress in science and religion. Hence, the overriding need is explore means of dialogue and possible synthesis.

Barbour, Ian G. 1997. Religion and science: Historical and contemporary issues. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
Brooke, John Hedley, and G. N. Cantor. 1998. Reconstructing nature: The engagement of science and religion. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.
Lindberg, David C., and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. 1986. God and nature: Historical essays on the encounter between Christianity and science. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Williams, Raymond. 1983. Nature. In Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society, 219-224. New York: Oxford University Press.