Religion and Science

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course explores the complex and sometimes contentious relationship between religious belief and modern science. After examining some of the larger historical and conceptual issues surrounding the modern debate between religion and science, we will then briefly survey the religion-science relationship across several major religious traditions. Having done so, we will focus in greater detail on one of the most important and heated areas of the current debate over religion and science: namely, the potential conflict between traditional forms of Christian faith and evolutionary theory. Authors to be studied include Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Owen Flanagan, John Haught, Kenneth Miller, Alvin Plantinga, John Polkinghorne, and Michael Ruse.