Abstract
Antje Jackelén has proposed the concept of eutonia as an analogy for understanding a constructive relationship between science and theology. By eutonia she means a kind of helpful tension that should exist in the dialogue between scientists and theologians around issues of religious concern. Such tension could help avoid the coercion of one discipline by the other and create an epistemic space where each discipline can contribute to the other. This chapter examines Jackelen’s proposal and explores how eutonia could open up a similar fruitful dialogical space between the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and theology. CSR offers theology a powerful tool to examine the possible constraints and cognitive compulsions in its attempt to fathom the mystery of God. Theology in turn can offer CSR a reminder of the limits of its gaze and an invitation to the transcendent depths of reality. The ultimate goal is a deeper and richer understanding of what it means to be human and how religion and science can work together to find ways to bring healing to the world and transform it in wholesome ways.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
For more information on ESSSAT see http://www.esssat.eu accessed on April 2015.
- 2.
See http://zygoncenter.org/events/2006-hivaids-workshop/ accessed on April 2015.
- 3.
See http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/2/after_breaking_gender_barrier_swedens_1st accessed on April 14, 2015.
- 4.
For an overview see Dimitris Xygalatas (2014).
- 5.
These dangers are not just hypothetical, see for example Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2006 [1999]).
- 6.
There have been some promising moves in the right direction, see for example, Ilkka Pyysiäinen (2015).
- 7.
- 8.
For a description of the warfare model, see Malcom Jeeves and Warren S. Brown (2009); especially chapter 2, “Warfare versus Partnership.”
- 9.
As bishop of Lund Jackelén chose as an inscription for her epicospal emblem the words: “God is greater,” for Jackelén’s explanation of the motto see http://www.svenskakyrkan.se/default.aspx?id=640721 accessed on April 14 2015.
- 10.
For a discussion of the social location of all knowledge and the need for making space for alternative ways of knowing see Otto Maduro 2012: 87–106.
- 11.
See http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.list/tagNo/2642/tags/scientific-fraud/ accessed on April 11 2015.
- 12.
Maggie Fox, “U.S. Apologizes for Syphilis Experiment in Guatemala,” Reuters, October 1 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/10/01/us-usa-guatemala-experiment-idUSTRE6903RZ20101001 accessed on April 11, 2015.
- 13.
See Francisca Cho and Richard K. Squier 2008: 420–448.
- 14.
- 15.
See James A. Van Slyke 2011.
- 16.
See Ara Norenzayan 2013: 193, footnote 5.
- 17.
See Rudolf Otto 1926.
- 18.
See Friedrich Schleiermacher 1893.
- 19.
See Mircea Eliade 1961.
- 20.
See Paul Tillich 1957.
- 21.
See Ilkka Pyysiainen 2003.
- 22.
Cf. Pascal Boyer 1994.
- 23.
See Michael Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry, and George R. Magnun 2013.
- 24.
See Paul Thagard 2005.
- 25.
See Justin Barrett 2004.
- 26.
See Robert J. Stainton, ed. 2006.
- 27.
The test is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpge6c3Ic4g accessed on April 14 2015.
- 28.
The explanation of the cognitive architectonics of religious beliefs presented here is based on Justin L. Barrett 2011.
- 29.
See Justin Barrett 2001: 259–69.
- 30.
See Ante Jackelén 2004.
- 31.
See Nancey Murphy 2006.
- 32.
See Catherine Keller 2014.
- 33.
See Mayra Rivera 2007.
- 34.
See Mary M. Solberg 1997.
- 35.
See Vítor Westhelle 2006.
- 36.
For an exposition from various perspectives on the relevance of the cross in theological thinking, see Marit Trelstad, ed. 2006.
- 37.
See Pyysiainen discussion in How Religion Works, op cit.
- 38.
For an example of a more elaborate attempt at doing constructing theology taking the cognitive sciences and neurosciences seriously, see Carmelo Santos 2010.
References
Barbour, Ian. 1997. Religion and science: Historical and contemporary issues. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
Barrett, Justin. 2001. How ordinary cognition informs petitionary prayer. Journal of Cognition and Culture 1(3): 259–269.
Barrett, Justin. 2004. Why would anyone believe in god? Walnut Creek: AltaMira.
Barrett, Justin. 2011. Cognitive science, religion and theology: From human minds to divine minds. Conshohocken: Templeton Press.
Boyer, Pascal. 1994. The naturalness of religious ideas: A cognitive theory of religion. Berkley: University of California Press.
Cho, Francisca, and Richard K. Squier. 2008. He blinded me with science: Science Chauvinism in the study of religion. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 76(2): 420–448.
Chomsky, Noam. 1959. “Review of B. F. Skinner”. Verbal behavior. Language 35: 26–57.
Eliade, Mircea. 1961. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Bros.
Fox, Maggie. 2010. U.S. apologizes for syphilis experiment in Guatemala. Reuters, October 1 2010. http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/10/01/us-usa-guatemala-experiment-idUSTRE6903RZ20101001. Accessed on April 2015.
Gazzaniga, Michael, Richard B. Ivry, and George R. Magnun. 2013. Cognitive neuroscience: The biology of mind, 4th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge.
Jackelén, Antje. 2001. From Drama to Disco: On the significance of relationality in science and religion. Philip Hefner: Created Co-Creator. Currents in Theology and Mission 28, nos. 3/4 (June–August): 229–237.
Jackelén, Antje. 2004. The dialogue between science and religion: Challenges and future directions. Proceedings of the third annual Goshen conference on religion and science. Kitchener: Pandora Press.
Jackelén, Antje. 2005. Time & Eternity: The Question of Time in Church, Science, and Theology. Trans. Barbara Harshaw. West Conshohocken: Templeton Foundation Press.
Jeeves, Malcom, and Warren S. Brown. 2009. Neuroscience, psychology and religion: Illusions, delusions, and realities about human nature. Conshohocken: Templeton Press.
Keller, Catherine. 2014. Cloud of the impossible: Negative theology and planetary entanglement. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lawson, E.T., and R.N. McCauley. 2002. The cognitive representation of religious ritual form: A theory of participants’ competence with religious ritual systems. In Current approaches in the cognitive science of religion, ed. Ilkka Pyysiäinen and Veikko Anttonen, 153–176. Landon/New York: Continuum.
Maduro, Otto. 2012. An(Other) invitation to epistemological humility: Notes toward a self-critical approach to counter-knowledges. In Decolonizing epistemologies: Latina/o theology and philosophy, 87–106. New York: Fordham University Press.
Marion, Jean Luc. 2008. The visible and the revealed. New York: Fordham University Press.
Murphy, Nancey. 2006. Bodies and souls, or spirited bodies? Current issues in theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nielsen, Marie Vejrup. 2010. Knowing through narratives? Narrative understanding and the separation between the narrative and the non-narrative. In How do we know? Understanding in science and theology, ed. Dirk Evers, Antje Jackelén, and Taede A. Smedes, 173–186. London/New York: T&T Clark International.
Norenzayan, Ara. 2013. Big gods: How religion transformed cooperation and conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Otto, Rudolf. 1926. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Holy. Trans. John W. Harvey. London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press.
Pyysiainen, Ilkka. 2003. How religion works: Toward a new cognitive science of religion. Leiden: Brill Academic.
Pyysiäinen, Ilkka. 2015. Theism reconsidered: Belief in god and the existence of god. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 50, no 1(March): 138–150.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1976. Interpretation theory: Discourse and the surplus of meaning. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press.
Rivera, Mayra. 2007. The touch of transcendence: A postcolonial theology of god. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
Santos, Carmelo. 2010. Symptoms of God’s spirit? A dialog between pneumatology and the cognitive sciences of religion. Ph.D. dissertation. Chicago: Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 1893. On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. Trans. with introduction by John Oman. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 2006 [1999]. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Ninth impression. London/New York: Zed Books Ltd and Dunedin: University of Otago Press.
Solberg, Mary M. 1997. Compelling knowledge: A feminist proposal for an epistemology of the cross. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. Can the subaltern speak? In Marxism and the interpretation of culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, 271–313. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Stainton, Robert J. (ed.). 2006. Contemporary debates in cognitive science. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Teske, J.A. 2010. ‘Let me tell you a story’: Narrative and meaning in science and religion. In How do we know? Understanding in science and theology, ed. Dirk Evers, Antje Jackelén, and Taede A. Smedes, 187–199. London/New York: T&T Clark International.
Thagard, Paul. 2005. Mind: Introduction to cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Tillich, Paul. 1957. Dynamics of faith. New York: Harper.
Trelstad, Marit (ed.). 2006. Cross examinations: Readings on the meaning of the cross today. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
van Huyssteen, Wentzel. 1998. Duet or duel: Theology and science in a postmodern world. London: SCM Press.
Van Slyke, James A. 2011. The cognitive science of religion. Burlington: Ashgate.
Westhelle, Vítor. 1995. Scientific sight and embodied knowledges: Social circumstances in science and theology. Modern Theology 11(3): 341–361.
Westhelle, Vítor. 2006. The scandalous god: The use and abuse of the cross. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Xygalatas, Dimitris. 2014. Cognitive science of religion. In Encyclopedia of psychology and religion, 2nd ed, ed. David A. Leeming, 343–347. New York: Springer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Santos, C. (2016). Eutonia: The Cross (In)Between Science and Theology. In: Baldwin, J. (eds) Embracing the Ivory Tower and Stained Glass Windows. Issues in Science and Religion: Publications of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23944-6_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23944-6_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-23942-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23944-6
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)