Wise Science or Scientific Theology?

McLeish, Tom.  Faith and Wisdom in Science.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
        ISBN: 978-0-19-870261-0

Do you wonder about the divide between science and faith?  Are puzzled by when and how this chasm came about and if it permanent?  If so, Prof. Tom McLeish of Durham University (UK) has some news for you.  He sees the divide as more a issue of perception rather than fact.

Prof. McLeish opens the book with an examination of the "Clamour of Voices" that arise when trying to discover a working definition of "science."  He then guides the reader on a journey through the past looking at specific cases of "natural philosophy" beginning with a strange jelly, then Brownian motion, then a 13th century bishop studying the properties of light, Bede on the water cycle, and ending with a discussion on the reality of the mind conducted by a brother and sister in the 4th century A.D. In the rest of the book the author looks at how questions of creation, nature, chaos an order are discussed in the Old and New Testament of the Bible while also looking at how science tries to explain storms, comets, chaos and naturally arising order.  The climax of the book is a delving into the book of Job with an examination of questions raised about science.  The author finishes with a chapter on how to bring faith and science back together.

Tom McLeish has not written a polemic condemning those who hold differing beliefs.  Instead, if the reader is willing to listen to arguments from different viewpoints, he or she will find plenty of fodder for thought in Faith & Wisdom in Science.