John Polkinghorne’s favorite contemporary theologian is Jürgen Moltmann. Even so, he once lamented the “spectacle of a distinguished theologian [Moltmann] writing over three hundred pages on God in creation with only an occasional and cursory reference to scientific insight.” It is as well that he later wrote of Moltmann and science in different and positive…

“In proclaiming the resurrection of Christ, the apostles proclaimed also the resurrection of mankind in Christ; and in proclaiming the resurrection of mankind, they proclaimed the renewal of all creation with him.” Doctrines of creation are of tremendous importance to Oliver O’Donovan’s moral theology. Creation is not conceived merely as an abstract set of theological…

Over a series of seminal works, Kathryn Tanner has established herself as one of America’s leading theologians working at the intersection of theology and culture. Active in the Episcopal Church, Tanner has been a member of the Theology Committee that advises the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. She is a past president of the American Theological…

Have scientific findings problematized the affirmation of the basic Christian doctrines of God as Creator—e.g., God as Creator of the cosmos, humanity and the world as in some way corrupted through the entrance of sin and evil, and ontological claims about humanity as created in God’s image? Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), Professor of New Testament at…

Frequently overlooked in Christian discussions on the doctrine of creation is the 2000-year old Jewish tradition. In many ways, Jewish thinkers shared the same concerns as their Christian counterparts; ever since the conflict with Greek philosophy, the rabbis and Jewish philosophers responded in similar ways as Christians to defend the biblical account of creation or…

Think of your favorite scientist or theologian. Now imagine: what hymn would you want sung at their funeral, because you knew it was their favorite hymn? At the funeral of the Swiss biblical scholar Adolf Schlatter (born 1852) on May 23, 1938, the large crowd assembled in the Tübingen municipal cemetery sang Schönster Herr Jesu—“Fairest…

Eberhard Jüngel’s most important and enduring contribution to the contemporary revival of interest in the doctrine of creation comes in the form of a demurral. Jüngel never produced a programmatic or even comprehensive statement on creation; the closest thing a late essay on “the creative power of the word” in the course of which he…

Along with Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) provided the intellectual foundation for the revival of nineteenth and twentieth-century Dutch Reformed theology and scholarship commonly referred to as neo-Calvinism. Both men were gifted and productive scholars, but Kuyper was the more public leader of a renewal movement in church and society while Bavinck more the…

Scripture interrupts the religious desire to deify the world, according to Robert W. Jenson. Where antique religions looked to the semi-divine stars in holy awe, the author of Genesis 1 wrote with “deliberate impiety: ‘Gods nothing! Energy sources that God hung up there!’” Jenson wryly concludes, “From here to Galileo is a matter of details.”…

Kierkegaard is never more lyrical than when writing about the beauty of creation. Throughout his authorship, there are numerous passages where he waxes poetic on the natural world, whether it be on the colors of an autumn scene, a sunset, or a moonlit evening. At the same time, he also thinks that the beauty of…

“The twentieth century lives, thinks and moves beneath the canopy of science, whose bold venturesomeness has turned ‘thick-coming fancies’ into common-place realities of our era,” Carl Henry wrote over a half century ago. “Whoever stutters while stressing this debt to science, too little senses the changed conditions under which the human species exists in modern…