Love and the Cosmos: Trinitarian Perspectives on Science

Update: In 2024, I am working to convert this course material to a book. If you’re interested in following along, download the Introduction (PDF) and let me know what you think.

This page introduces my online graduate course, “Love and the Cosmos: Trinitarian Perspectives on Science with T. F. Torrance and C. S. Lewis,” which was initially offered by Grace Communion Seminary (TH504) in Spring 2020.

Love and the Cosmos…

• Doxological love: Is the daily experience of the reality of every creature and every aspect of the natural order, with wonder, humility and gratitude, a practice of love?
• Cognitive love: Is the way we come to know something according to its own reality and nature an exercise of love?
• Ethical love: Is what we do with our knowledge a form of love?
• Eschatological love (or, the hope of love): Is the natural world, the cosmos in which we live, a school in which we might learn to love?

A Trinitarian vision of natural science (and what we are here for) is one of love and the cosmos.

… Trinitarian perspectives on science…

• The strategy of the course is to identify aspects of theological science that are evident in the church’s development of Incarnational and Trinitarian theology leading up to and surrounding the Council of Nicaea. And then to see if those aspects of theological science have counterparts in how the natural sciences work as well.
• In addition, we explore the related question of how Christian understanding of creation might be deepened if we were to begin with a Christological focus (e.g., the revelation of redemption and new creation evident in the gospel, and the relations of the divine and human natures of Christ). And then to search out creaturely analogies, echoes, or resonances in the relations between God and Nature.

To approach the sciences in view of questions like these is a way of developing a Trinitarian theological instinct for science.

… with T. F. Torrance and C. S. Lewis

Examining the views of Torrance and Lewis are helpful because:

• They are two of the most highly regarded 20th-century Christian writers.
• Each wrote in the Nicene theological tradition of Athanasius.
• Each wrote prolifically on Christianity and science.
• Each engaged in what Lewis called “rehabilitation,” a sympathetic reading and recovery of historical writers.
• Their books are not textbooks, but classics, for life-long learning.
• Many report that reading their books is an intellectually exhilarating, life-changing experience.
• Each spoke anchored in the Church, for the sake of the world.

Aims

1. Rather than an issues-based course, the course is designed primarily to help one develop a Trinitarian theological instinct for science. That is the chief aim of the course.
2. It is also, secondarily, a reading seminar, to prepare you for lifelong reading of Torrance and Lewis. Think of the videos as experiences in close-reading of select passages from their works, and the forums as places where you participate, seminar style, in the discussion of the passages quoted (aided by reflection prompts at the end of each video).
3. A tertiary aim is to acquaint you with select episodes in the history of science that are of crucial significance for science and theology.

Outline

Topics listed above link to Vimeo pages for watching each video. Look in the video caption at Vimeo for a link to that video’s script (PDF), table of contents, and select related readings. There is an old course packet (now obsolete).

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
– William Butler Yeats (attributed)

Course structure

This graduate course is 15 weeks long. Week 1 is an Orientation, which features two external presentations to introduce you to T. F. Torrance and C. S. Lewis. The last week is for finishing assignments – including conversations with scientists or creation workers using the methods of oral history, and the final paper. The final paper is an ongoing essay on “love and the cosmos” revised in draft form each week throughout the semester.

Typical weeks have a regular weekly rhythm featuring two “seminars,” as shown in the table above. Each of the two seminars every week is comprised of three parts:

1. a video lecture (with available PDF script),
2. short readings excerpted from Torrance and Lewis to accompany the video, and
3. forum discussion.

Most videos are about 2 hours in length (sometimes more, sometimes less); the brief readings typically require no more than an hour. Think of this pedagogical model as a seminar or a “flipped classroom”: the video is not the equivalent of a “class period”; rather, the equivalent of a typical class period is the forum discussion (which in principle might be either synchronous or asynchronous, in-person or online).

During most weeks, the two seminars follow a sequence. The week as a whole is a thematic unit, where the first seminar introduces a perspective and the second seminar applies that perspective to one or more case studies, past or present. You will establish a breathing rhythm: inhale (perspective) and exhale (application). (The introductory seminar has three applications: the “Flat Earth Myth,” and then two more in a bonus week.)

Topics follow an overall sequence week-over-week throughout the semester. For example, the “Natural Theology” seminar in Week 13 does not stand alone; like the “Evolution” seminar in the same week, it refers back to, and builds upon, every single week leading up to it. The “Thinking Theologically” video is the essential prologue to every other. So the course videos are best watched in sequence. No video stands on its own; rather, they are holistically-intertwined, with some degree of repetition and anticipation. They create an ever-widening spiral of inter-linked understanding.

Books

From the LibraryThing links below, you should be able to click through directly to Amazon and other online booksellers for your country. Any edition is fine. The approximate price indicated is based on a recent edition at Amazon (US); the other booksellers may offer copies at lower prices. Please obtain these before class begins.

Bibliographic information for works by Torrance is for the first edition, but any edition is fine. Click on any “McGrath number” (e.g., #1976-331) to go to the first edition record at tftorrance.org. Look in the right margin of that record to find links to all known later editions, translations, digital editions, and original audio lectures, as well as to booksellers via LibraryThing, Amazon, Bookfinder and AbeBooks.

T. F. Torrance

• Torrance, Thomas F. “Theological Instinct.” An audio recording of a lecture recorded in October, 2002. Vancouver, BC, Canada: Regent College, 2002; #2002-TFT-4. $5.00 from Regent Audio, https://www.regentaudio.com/products/theological-instinct. 30 minutes.
• Torrance, Thomas F. Space, Time and Resurrection (STR). Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1976; #1976-331. ISBN: 9780905312002. 209 pp. About $30 at online booksellers. Available in many editions, including Apple Books and Kindle.
• Torrance, Thomas F. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988; #1988-489. About $27 online for ISBN 0567665585 edition. Available in many editions, including audio lectures, Apple Books and Kindle. 345 pp.
• Torrance, Thomas F. The Ground and Grammar of Theology (GGT). Charlottesville, Virginia: The University of Virginia Press, 1980; #1980-369. 192 pp. Also available in Logos Bible Software ($25). GGT originated as popular lectures, and so may be read as a relatively accessible general overview of Torrance’s creational theology. Original audio lectures are also available.


C. S. Lewis

• An introductory video is watched in the Orientation week; please acquire access to it before the semester begins. Select either one of the following:
  • “The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C. S. Lewis,” Fellowship of Performing Arts, released 2021. 1 hr, 13 mins.
  • Max McLean, “C.S. Lewis On Stage – The Most Reluctant Convert,” 2019. 77 minutes. Amazon US. The DVD is about $14 at online vendors. Available on many streaming services; available free in the US with Amazon Prime.
• Lewis, C. S. Out of the Silent Planet; LibraryThing. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1965. Originally published in 1938. 160 pp. About $10 at online booksellers for ISBN 0743234901 edition. Available in many editions, including Apple Books, Kindle and in audiobook format. The audiobook is 5 hours and 31 minutes long.
• Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain; LibraryThing. About $10 at online booksellers.
• Lewis, C. S. The Abolition of Man; LibraryThing. About $10 at online booksellers.
• Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity; LibraryThing. About $10 at online booksellers.
• Lewis, C. S. Miracles; LibraryThing. About $10 at online booksellers.

Except for Out of the Silent Planet, we will only read excerpts from the books above.

“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!” Henry David Thoreau

Outcomes

This course will equip participants to…

1. Converse with scientists and creation workers about their vocational callings, in order to gain experience that will help make our churches safe and welcoming places for those who practice, or who wish to pursue, any of the fields of the natural sciences, including geology, evolutionary biology, healthcare, technology and engineering, agriculture, and conservation.
2. Critically analyze misconceptions that underlie the most common caricatures of an allegedly inevitable conflict between Christian faith and modern science such as the flat Earth myth, science and superstition in ancient Babylonian astronomy, Copernicus and the Earth’s motion in the heavens, the trial of Galileo, the immensity of the universe, the plurality of worlds, the age of the Earth, Darwin and evolution, and the Church and ecology, in order to be able to assist persons, unbelievers and believers alike, who are working through such issues.
3. Develop and demonstrate a practice of thinking theologically about God and nature, or faith and reason, according to a “Christian theological instinct” that reasons from a Trinitarian basis and goes beyond responding in an ad hoc manner to select misconceptions about Christianity and science.
4. Develop and articulate a “relational natural theology” which arises naturally and organically from the nature of the gospel and the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity. That is, to practice drawing out the implications of the Incarnation and the Trinity for a Christian perspective on love and the cosmos.
5. Describe and explain select perspectives of T. F. Torrance and C. S. Lewis on faith and science.
6. Enter into regular weekly discussions with other students to share ideas, concepts and reflections on the course materials. (Contact me if you’re interested in an extra-curricular discussion group.)
7. Practice reading well by adopting strategies appropriate to the nature of the text, such as close reading for the dense prose of T. F. Torrance and literary reading for the Ransom Trilogy of C. S. Lewis.

Introduction

Here’s the Thinking Theologically perspective video, which serves as an introduction to the course.

Love and Geology

The Trinity and (Geo)Science: This talk provides an overview of the themes of the course all in one go. While the course videos cite examples from many fields of science, this talk draws upon historical geology for its applications. Watch it before the semester starts to anticipate the scope and contents of the course, or watch it afterwards as a way of reviewing what you have learned and of reflecting how the perspectives might apply in practice to any single scientific discipline.

Question: How would you create a similar presentation with examples all selected from your favorite (different) scientific discipline? Love and Astronomy? Love and Biology? Love and Chemistry? Love and Meteorology? Love and Medicine? etc.

Why online?

I’m a huge fan of MIT’s Open Courseware, where they make MIT lectures available for free. They are confident that the value of an MIT education lies in the interaction with mentors and fellow students. This class certainly bears that out! The videos are merely a prelude to participation in the forums, interacting with one another, which is the essential DNA of the course. The personal contributions of every participant make it relational in nature, as genuine learning must ever be. Special thanks to all the students in Spring 2020, who made it a joyous learning experience through active participation in service of others. So if you’re interested in the videos, you’ll find that they come alive through interaction.

Contact me if you would be interested to dialogue about any part of this course, or to be notified if an informal discussion group forms.