Robin W. Lovin and Joshua Maudlin, eds. Theology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry: Learning with and from the Natural and Human Sciences (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017).
In this volume leading scholars in ethics, theology, and social science sum up. The Center of Theological Inquiry is an independent research institution located in Princeton, New Jersey. Their mission is to bring into dialogue theology with various other disciplines, and to that end, they have convened leading thinkers in an interdisciplinary study and conversation over a three-year period regarding the value of interdisciplinary theological inquiry. This is an essential and challenging collection for all who set out to think, write, teach, and preach theologically in the contemporary world. The title shares the wisdom gained about the nature and practice of interdisciplinary theological inquiry. It covers three distinct but interrelated topics of global concern: human nature, human flourishing, and human society. By drawing on the disciplines of anthropology, psychology, and law, the conveners found that they gained a deeper understanding of what it means to do theology. The six essays that make up this book are from scholars who epitomize and exemplify the research done in the three disciplines just mentioned. The aim of the volume is to call attention to the growing body of work done in interdisciplinary theological inquiry and to promote further theological reflection on what aspects of doctrine and tradition lend themselves to this development and which might resist it. Moreover, the title seeks to explore what attitudes and values that theologians should bring to their investigations into other disciplines. Contributors include: John P. Burgess, Peter Danchin, Celia Deane-Drummond, Agustín Fuentes, Andrea Hollingsworth, Friederike Nüssel, Mary Ellen O’Connell, Douglas F. Ottati, Stephen Pope, Colleen Shantz, and Michael Spezio. This is an exciting title in an emerging area of theological inquiry.
Bradford McCall
Claremont School of Theology