The Evolution of Rationality

How can science and religion move together toward a collegial future? J. Wentzel van Huyssteen has spent decades developing an interdisciplinary platform for the fruitful engagement of science and religion. Compiled to celebrate van Huyssteen's 65th birthday, The Evolution of Rationality gathers a stellar roster of scholars in van Huyssteen's main areas of philosophy, science, and theology.

The contributors -- some of them Gifford lecturers and Templeton Prize winners -- offer significant new methodological and material proposals, giving evidence of van Huyssteen's impact on the shape and texture of interdisciplinary conversation itself. Their essays are arranged in three parts:
 

 
• modern and postmodern philosophical challenges to our understanding of rationality
• scientific, evolutionary perspectives on the nature and development of human rationality in relation to religion
• religious and theological explorations of the evolution of rationality

However, because the authors are all involved in interdisciplinary dialogue, this philosophical-scientific-theological arrangement of chapters is not hard and fast. Virtually every essay engages issues that overlap all three fields, forming an extremely rich blend of thought.

A creative interdisciplinary collection written by world-renowned philosophers, scientists, and theologians, The Evolution of Rationality renders fitting tribute to pioneering scholar-mentor J. Wentzel van H u y s s t e en.

Contributors:
  John Hedley Brooke
Delwin Brown
Philip Clayton
Jean Clottes
F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp
David Fergusson
Niels Henrik Gregersen
David Lewis-Williams
George Newlands
Richard Robert Osmer
Arthur Peacocke
Kenneth A. Reynhout
Holmes Rolston III
Michael Ruse
Calvin O. Schrag
F. LeRon Shults
Christopher Southgate
Michael L. Spezio
Mikael Stenmark
Jerome A. Stone
Ian Tattersall
Roger Trigg
Keith Ward
Wesley J. Wildman

F. LeRon Shults is professor of theology and philosophy at the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway. His other books include Reforming the Doctrine of God and Christology and Science.