Theses

This thesis seeks to understand the origin of consciousness through the Christian conception of God and creation. Although consciousness has a number of different meanings, this thesis will operate with the concept of self-consciousness, i.e., the ability of being aware of one’s self as experienced by embodied human persons. The origin of self-consciousness pertains to its arrival throughout cosmic evolution since embodied human persons with self-consciousness did not always exist. The science of consciousness is a developing enterprise but it is still in its speculative stages since consciousness is not observable through conventional scientific/empirical means. The broad argumentation of this thesis concerning the origin of consciousness is two-pronged. The first prong pertains to a methodological claim, namely that theology can make a fruitful contribution to the sciences in understanding the origin of consciousness. This will be examined through the approach of the physicist and theologian Robert John Russell, whose novel approach to the science-theology discourse, Creative Mutual Interaction (CMI), allows for a bidirectional interaction between the two disciplines. CMI involves eight pathways; five from science to theology and three from theology to science. All pathways will be explored but a stronger focus will be given to the latter three. The second prong involves a series of arguments in support of the Christian conception of God and creation as providing a plausible explanation for the origin of consciousness. This will involve arguments in natural theology, philosophical theology and systematic theology.
 

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The focus of this research paper concerns the dialogue between science and theology. The
current state of the dialogue involves a wide range of points of intersection that both pose and
provoke questions concerning the very viability and coherence of such a dialogue. Such points
of intersection include big bang cosmology, the fine tuning of the laws of physics, quantum
physics, origin of life studies, evolutionary biology, the concept of an unembodied mind and the
mind-body problem in the neurosciences to mention a few. Without a doubt, the field of science
and theology is such of breadth and diversity that approaches themselves to such a dialogue have
become equally diverse. In order to promote some comprehensive understanding of the diverse
approaches, a number of theologians have attempted to develop representative typologies of the
approaches that define the dialogue. For example, Ian Barbour who is a pioneer of the science
and theology dialogue and who was a recipient of the 1999 Templeton Prize for his contribution
to the advancement of religion and science, has developed a well known fourfold typology for
science and theology. In addition, there are typologies proposed by Ted Peters, Willem Drees
and John Haught. However, some critics have maintained that even such typologies cannot
encompass the full set of complexities and specific features of the dialogue between theology
and science due to the fact that the very number of complexities and distinct features do not lend
themselves to neatly designed categories.

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