Customer Reviews

The Knight's Move: The Relational Logic of the Spirit in Theology and Science

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tapping into relativity, and quantum mechanics, among others, Loder and Neidhardt propose an interesting connection between science, the Incarnation, and Kierkegaard to show how the human spirit is analogous to the Holy Spirit of God. What this book does that is so novel to the discussion is that it removes the science/theology dialogue from abstraction and brings it into intimate contact with the deepest recesses of the human self and soul. It is a key book for education, and also gives a valuable spin on the similarites in epistemology in Kierkegaard, Niels Bohr, Einstein, Torrance, and others. Perhaps the most profound demonstration is that the way a human being comes to know anything is directly associated with and analogous to the activity of God through the Holy Spirit. The only reason for removing one star in my rating is that the prose tends to be highly technical for the lay reader and so, one can easily get bogged down in technicalities. But if you want a good, scholarly look at education and the deepest recesses of what it means to be human, you MUST consider this book.

As a undergraduate philosophy major with an interest in theology I became captivated by the works of Soren Kierkegaard and began collecting nearly everything that was currently available in English. At the time this book caught my attention due to the many references to Kierkegaard throughout the book. In fact, the book's basic framework is based on Kiekegaardian categories (at least to start with). I was intrigued by the way the authors brought this figure from the 1800's straight into dialogue with modern science especially (prior to reading the book I had not realized that Bohr, the scientist, was a fan of Kierkegaard as well). This book has become for me a "Wood Between the Worlds", to use a phrase from C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew. It has introduced me to a number of ideas and people that I might never known otherwise. Michael Polanyi and Thomas F. Torrance in particular have become important avenues of further research. This is a "big picture" book that will leave you hungry for more information and will spark some creative thoughts of your own. It is written in language that will appear technical to those unfamiliar with some basic concepts in quantum physics, theology, and philosophy, as another reviewer has mentioned, but those with a strong background in two or three of these disciplines or perhaps already familiar with Kiekegaard, Bohr, Torrance, Polanyi, and to a lesser extent Piaget (as an epistemological scientist, not the watered-down "educator" version) will feel at home. Also, as alluded to in another review, the book's premise is a Christian worldview(assumed not argued for) and so will appeal to monotheists primarily. Unfortunately, I know nothing of the authors themselves outside of the fact that they are a scientist and theologian team (Princeton?). The book directed me more to the people they were writing about than themselves, but at some point I may decide to jump into that puddle as well.