Ik las een boeiende bespreking van een reeks schilderijen, gebaseerd op bijbelteksten waarin de natuurlijke wereld centraal staat. Voorbeelden van zo’n teksten zijn Jesaja 43, 20: De wilde dieren zullen mij eer bewijzen, de jakhalzen en de struisvogels, omdat ik water schep in de woestijn en rivieren in de wildernis; het volk dat ik heb…
Tag: theology
Eén zomer, twee boeken
Humans are new here
Wim Drees on Science-Inspired Naturalistic Theism
I’ve just finished reading an article by Wim Drees, published (free acces) in Theology and Science, and was really inspired by it. That has of course to do with my own unfinished search for a theological position, in which I hesitate to identify my stance completely with religious naturalism. Drees explains in his article how…
The Importance of Modesty (New Year’s Resolutions)
In my most recent post, I argued how important it is to teach narrative skills, in particular in religious education. Jerome Bruner refers to narrative skills as the ability to understand and apply the methods of ‘narrative fields of knowledge’. He points to literature, poetry, historiography, etc., as examples of such fields, but I think it is obvious…
Knowing the Past to Co-Create the Future.
Last week, I received an e-mail with the delightful news that my abstract for the next IRAS-conference , titled: “How Can We Know? Co-creating Knowledge in Perilous Times”, has been accepted. Moreover, the organizing committee awarded me with a Fellowship to enable me to join them. Obviously, I’m thrilled about this: a perfect way to end my…
CFP for “Relation, Vulnerability, Love: Theological Anthropology in the 21st Century”
September 2016 is an important month for the Anthropos Research Group, since we organize a conference that should allow us to bring together different strands of our research. The title, “Relation, Vulnerability, Love: Theological Anthropology in the 21st Century”, expresses both the ambition of the conference and the three concepts that we think are essential to…
Debate on Niche Construction
I recently discovered an older (2014) article in Nature debating the value of the concept ‘niche construction’. The article nicely offers room for advocates and opponents of this concept. Niche construction is, briefly said, the notion that the relation between organisms and their environment is a feedback relation: organisms alter their environment through their actions, with…
Learning From Schillebeeckx
Last week, I participated in a Schillebeeckx Research Seminar, co-organized by KU Leuven and Radbout University. The seminar consisted of two days crammed with presentations and discussions, having me fill up page after page in my note book in an attempt to make sure I would be able to retrieve as much insights as possible afterwards. The most exciting,…
Science, Religion and Theology: Two Lumberjacks and a Carpenter?
I think we could see both religion and science as a lumberjack, delivering tree trunks as the raw material for theology, the carpenter, to make pieces of furniture with, turning a building, i.e. the world, into a house, i.e. a habitable place. The tree trunks are the results of either scientific research, like theories, data analyses,…