Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Eutonia: The Cross (In)Between Science and Theology

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Embracing the Ivory Tower and Stained Glass Windows

  • 237 Accesses

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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For more information on ESSSAT see http://www.esssat.eu accessed on April 2015.

  2. 2.

    See http://zygoncenter.org/events/2006-hivaids-workshop/ accessed on April 2015.

  3. 3.

    See http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/2/after_breaking_gender_barrier_swedens_1st accessed on April 14, 2015.

  4. 4.

    For an overview see Dimitris Xygalatas (2014).

  5. 5.

    These dangers are not just hypothetical, see for example Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2006 [1999]).

  6. 6.

    There have been some promising moves in the right direction, see for example, Ilkka Pyysiäinen (2015).

  7. 7.

    For a discussion of this surplus, see Paul Ricoeur (1976); and also Jean Luc Marion (2008).

  8. 8.

    For a description of the warfare model, see Malcom Jeeves and Warren S. Brown (2009); especially chapter 2, “Warfare versus Partnership.”

  9. 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. 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. 11.

    See http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.list/tagNo/2642/tags/scientific-fraud/ accessed on April 11 2015.

  12. 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. 13.

    See Francisca Cho and Richard K. Squier 2008: 420–448.

  14. 14.

    For the role of narrative as a source of knowledge see Marie Vejrup Nielsen 2010: 173–186; and, in the same volume, John A. Teske 2010: 187–199.

  15. 15.

    See James A. Van Slyke 2011.

  16. 16.

    See Ara Norenzayan 2013: 193, footnote 5.

  17. 17.

    See Rudolf Otto 1926.

  18. 18.

    See Friedrich Schleiermacher 1893.

  19. 19.

    See Mircea Eliade 1961.

  20. 20.

    See Paul Tillich 1957.

  21. 21.

    See Ilkka Pyysiainen 2003.

  22. 22.

    Cf. Pascal Boyer 1994.

  23. 23.

    See Michael Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry, and George R. Magnun 2013.

  24. 24.

    See Paul Thagard 2005.

  25. 25.

    See Justin Barrett 2004.

  26. 26.

    See Robert J. Stainton, ed. 2006.

  27. 27.

    The test is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpge6c3Ic4g accessed on April 14 2015.

  28. 28.

    The explanation of the cognitive architectonics of religious beliefs presented here is based on Justin L. Barrett 2011.

  29. 29.

    See Justin Barrett 2001: 259–69.

  30. 30.

    See Ante Jackelén 2004.

  31. 31.

    See Nancey Murphy 2006.

  32. 32.

    See Catherine Keller 2014.

  33. 33.

    See Mayra Rivera 2007.

  34. 34.

    See Mary M. Solberg 1997.

  35. 35.

    See Vítor Westhelle 2006.

  36. 36.

    For an exposition from various perspectives on the relevance of the cross in theological thinking, see Marit Trelstad, ed. 2006.

  37. 37.

    See Pyysiainen discussion in How Religion Works, op cit.

  38. 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, Justin. 2001. How ordinary cognition informs petitionary prayer. Journal of Cognition and Culture 1(3): 259–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, Justin. 2004. Why would anyone believe in god? Walnut Creek: AltaMira.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, Justin. 2011. Cognitive science, religion and theology: From human minds to divine minds. Conshohocken: Templeton Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyer, Pascal. 1994. The naturalness of religious ideas: A cognitive theory of religion. Berkley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, Noam. 1959. “Review of B. F. Skinner”. Verbal behavior. Language 35: 26–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eliade, Mircea. 1961. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Bros.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackelén, Antje. 2005. Time & Eternity: The Question of Time in Church, Science, and Theology. Trans. Barbara Harshaw. West Conshohocken: Templeton Foundation Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jeeves, Malcom, and Warren S. Brown. 2009. Neuroscience, psychology and religion: Illusions, delusions, and realities about human nature. Conshohocken: Templeton Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keller, Catherine. 2014. Cloud of the impossible: Negative theology and planetary entanglement. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marion, Jean Luc. 2008. The visible and the revealed. New York: Fordham University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, Nancey. 2006. Bodies and souls, or spirited bodies? Current issues in theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norenzayan, Ara. 2013. Big gods: How religion transformed cooperation and conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pyysiainen, Ilkka. 2003. How religion works: Toward a new cognitive science of religion. Leiden: Brill Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, Paul. 1976. Interpretation theory: Discourse and the surplus of meaning. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rivera, Mayra. 2007. The touch of transcendence: A postcolonial theology of god. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 1893. On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. Trans. with introduction by John Oman. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solberg, Mary M. 1997. Compelling knowledge: A feminist proposal for an epistemology of the cross. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Stainton, Robert J. (ed.). 2006. Contemporary debates in cognitive science. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thagard, Paul. 2005. Mind: Introduction to cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tillich, Paul. 1957. Dynamics of faith. New York: Harper.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trelstad, Marit (ed.). 2006. Cross examinations: Readings on the meaning of the cross today. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Huyssteen, Wentzel. 1998. Duet or duel: Theology and science in a postmodern world. London: SCM Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Slyke, James A. 2011. The cognitive science of religion. Burlington: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westhelle, Vítor. 1995. Scientific sight and embodied knowledges: Social circumstances in science and theology. Modern Theology 11(3): 341–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Westhelle, Vítor. 2006. The scandalous god: The use and abuse of the cross. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xygalatas, Dimitris. 2014. Cognitive science of religion. In Encyclopedia of psychology and religion, 2nd ed, ed. David A. Leeming, 343–347. New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Theology Department, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

    Carmelo Santos

Authors
  1. Carmelo Santos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carmelo Santos .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, Illinois, USA

    Jennifer Baldwin

Rights and permissions

Reprints 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

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation