The Big Bang and God: An Astro-Theology

In this book, interdisciplinary convergences between the ostensibly oppositional fields of natural theology and the 'hard sciences' of astronomy, biology, astrobiology, astrophysics, and cosmology are developed and explored. The astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe and theologian Theodore Walker Jr. have come together to present what they call a postmodern Astro-Theology that reveals unexpected agreements among scientific cosmology, evolutionary biology, and natural theology. Walker and Wickramasinghe claim that recognition and analysis of these convergences is part of a greater postmodern trend. They also assert, however, that a recognition of the overlap between the theological and scientific has historical precedent in the work and musings of astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, and process philosopher Charles Hartshorne. The book also challenges the mistaken view that Hoyle was unchangeably committed to atheism. According to Walker and Wickramasinghe, part of the postmodern trend toward a breakdown of the silos that separate ostensibly opposed disciplines is increased overlap and communication between natural scientific disciplines and various artistic disciplines, especially poetry. This unusual volume thus also draws on the work of poets, science fiction authors, and other artists as it develops and reifies a radical relationship between the scientific and theological.