Science and the Spiritual Quest

This is a remarkable series of 16 interviews and essays arising from the project of the same name co-ordinated by the Center for Theology and Natural Science. In his introduction, Mark Richardson comments on the diversity of opinion to be found in the book and usefully distinguishes a number of different approaches: rational-speculative, affective-holistic and critical-historical. It is true to say that each writer stresses one of these, even if many of the issues addressed are similar. Some of the authors are better known than others but all have interesting points to make. Among the most stimulating for me were Michael Ruse on Darwinism and Atheism, Martinez Hewlett on reductionism and steps to the scientific rejection of the spiritual. Here he distinguishes reasons based on observation from those belonging to metascience and philosophy. Philip Clayton concludes the volume with some pertinent observations: although science presents a challenge to theism, it is not all-sufficient and the category of spirituality can be an important bridge between the two.