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Bible and Science

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Stanley L. Jaki is one of the most important writers on the relationship between religion and science. Perhaps because of his writing style - which is at times polemical and at other times obscure - he doesn't receive the attention he deserves. This book - Bible and Science - serves as an excellent introduction to his work as well as a fine introduction to the subject in general.

This book is really two books. The first deals with the Biblical view of the world. As Jaki tells us, while the Bible's view of the universe may be somewhat primitive, it does teach about the regularity of nature and contains a realist epistemology, both of which provided fertile ground for the rise of science. Although Jaki is a conservative Catholic theologian and has, for example, written books defending the papacy, he is no fundamentalist. While he rejects Darwinism, he also rejects any attempt to find "concordance" between Genesis and natural science. He also considers Genesis 1 to be post-exilic and the product of multiple authors, which will hardly endear him to conservative Protestants, who might otherwise sympathize with much of his work. The second book concerns the history of science and Christianity from the time of the Greeks to the present. According to Jaki, western science came to a dead-end around the time of Christ, only to be revivified during the Middle Ages thanks to the influence of Christianity. This part of the book can be obscure at times, but it is worth the effort.