Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action: Twenty Years of Challenge and Progress (From the Vatican Observatory Foundation)

Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action: Twenty Years of Challenge and Progress is a collection of thirteen essays assessing the scholarly contributions to the Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action series, which is comprised of five volumes resulting from international research conferences co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences between 1991 and 2000. The overarching goal of the series is to advance the engagement of constructive theology with the natural sciences with special attention to the theme of divine action and to investigate the philosophical and theological elements within science.

This volume is divided into three sections: In Section One, contributors review the history of the series and the development of new research methodology and discuss philosophical issues raised by the laws of nature and the limits of science; in Section Two, authors provide philosophical analysis of specific issues in the series; and in Section Three, contributors offer theological analyses of specific issues.

The five volumes in the series include: Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature (vol. 1, 1993); Chaos and Complexity (vol. 2, 1995); Molecular and Evolutionary Biology (vol. 3, 1998); Neuroscience and the Person (vol. 4, 1999); and Quantum Mechanics (vol. 5, 2001), and are distributed by University of Notre Dame Press.

Robert John Russell is the Ian G. Barbour Professor of Theology and Science in Residence at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. He is the author or co-editor of seventeen books, including Cosmology From Alpha To Omega: Theology and Science in Creative Mutual Interaction and Resurrection: Theological And Scientific Assessments. He is also the founder and director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.

Nancey Murphy is professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary and co-editor of Neuroscience and the Person, also published by the University of Notre Dame Press.

William R. Stoeger S.J. (1943-2014) was an American astronomer and theologian. He studied theology at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. He was a staff scientist for the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson, specializing in theoretical cosmology, high-energy astrophysics, and interdisciplinary studies relating to science, philosophy and theology. Fr. Stoeger was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1972, and earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics in 1976 at Cambridge University, where he was a student of the Astronomer Royal, Baron Martin Rees, and a classmate of Stephen Hawking.