Review of Griffin's Religion and Scientific Naturalism

[Alex]

Review of David Ray Griffin's Religion and Scientific Naturalism
By Thomas Jay Oord
2000
http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/2623/Default.aspx

...Only a minimal, rather than maximal, version of naturalism is required to provide the basis of an adequate and consistent scientific method.  This minimalist understanding of scientific naturalism states that "all occurrences, without exception, are explainable in principle without appeal to supernatural interventions," says Griffin.  To say it another way, "all events are enmeshed in a universal cause-effect nexus, so that all events have natural causes and effects".  Currently, however, most assume scientific naturalism in a maximal sense, and this maximal sense carries with it atheism, sensationism, and mechanism.

...A naturalistic theism, which involves the claim that God never interrupts the natural cause-effect nexus, offers religion a conceptual hypothesis congruent with a minimal scientific naturalism.  ...

...John F. Haught...said...: "No book that I know of has struck so directly at the roots of the dispute nor provided such a polished, thorough, and well-argued synthesis of religion and theological insight on the issues in science and religion."  ...


Thomas Jay Oord is an ordained minister of the Church of the Nazarene, an evangelical Christian denomination



Another review: http://www.burgy.50megs.com/griffin.htm