How to Relate Theology and Science Today: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Science and theology apparently compete in the same terrain. Beyond this broadly shared opinion, it is convenient to analyze the kind of ‘job’ each of these instances assumes. Science pursues epistemic goals, while religion follows soteriological and moral ones. Such a distinction allows for a better insight into the possible ways to relate to each other: competition, independence and contact, become the standard positions. The contact view appears as more fitting for the current theological program. The case of human uniqueness in the context of evolutionary theory exemplifies the challenges born from that position. This strategy finds four expressions on its own: the conservative, the traditional, the liberal, and the constructivist.