Cosmology, Religion and Science

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Cosmology traces developments in the mythological and natural-scientific study of the universe in its complex history. This module presents these developments as they have been interpreted from biblical, theological and philosophical perspectives and traces how they conflicted or converged with cosmologies from the natural sciences particularly since the 16th century. It explores how specific cosmologies in-astronomy, thermodynamics, emerging universe models, evolutionary theory and in the return to narrative in the natural sciences- impact on theology, science, culture. This includes implications for anthropology: the human person as created in the image of God (imago Dei); as embodied and free, contingent and subject to frailty and failure ('sin'); as steward of creation; and inhabitant of the earthly cosmopolis.