Steve Fuller

On the Origin of Consciousness

Science & Faith

“Scott Ventureyra’s On the Origin of Consciousness is a brave and illuminating book that could easily serve as an advanced primer on the topic. The book starts from the obvious but no less striking premise that unlike physics, biology, and even psychology, consciousness is not a surprising phenomenon to theology. In fact, theologians expect consciousness, understood as the existential basis for humanity’s relationship to God. This suggests that theologians should be central to the emerging interdisciplinary study of consciousness. Ventureyra makes good on this proposal by showing the mutual bearing that theological and scientific arguments have on each other. While himself a traditional Christian, he is mindful not to overstate the probative character of theological arguments. Here Ventureyra updates the appeal to philosophy as an honest broker between the claims of science and theology that had been instrumental in legitimizing of the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. An especially welcome feature of this book is the extended, sympathetic, yet also critical treatment of the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.”

The Dome of Eden

Science & Faith

“The ongoing, critical re-evaluation of Darwinian evolution by theologians has revived an interest in the problem of natural evil. Stephen Webb must be counted as one of the most imaginative and adventurous contributors to this literature, someone who at once reasserts the significance of Satan in nature and the person of Christ as the archetype for the human condition. In Webb one encounters a close reader of the Bible who manages to render a providential view of divine creation compatible with recent convergent approaches to evolution that suggest, on scientific grounds, a more purposeful view of humanity than Darwin would ever have allowed.”