ANZATS 2024 Paper

Speaker: Doru Costache Topic: Communicating Theologically Interpreted Scientific Information to Christian Congregations: Patristic and Neopatristic Lessons Delivered remotely, 2 July 2024 ANZATS Conference 2024: Connection and Community Abstract: The field of faith and science—also known as science and religion or theology and science—has developed significantly in the last seventy years, dismantling the “conflict” narrative. It did so, however, within the confines of an academic discipline that has been operating in diverse settings, from historical to philosophical to religious studies. It currently flourishes in Western Europe and North America, but not Down Under. In this paper, I will not discuss the causes of its academic marginalisation in our region, being instead interested in its limited impact on a popular level. Anecdotal evidence tells us that many Christians, for example, believe that faith and science are irreconcilable or, at best, that they have nothing to tell each other and that the sciences are of no use to believers. Not even newer approaches, such as “after science and religion” and “science-engaged theology,” seem to make a dent, as they aim to contribute academically, not pastorally. In turn, I discuss a traditionally anchored method, hermeneutical in scope, for the communication of theologically interpreted scientific information to Christian congregations, beyond the academia. I propose that this pastorally grounded approach is suitable for popularising the findings of science and religion to believers, and that it contributes to deepening the faith. First, I present the academic framework as what hinders the relevant findings from reaching the people in the pews; second, I present patristic and neopatristic examples of effective communication of relevant ideas at the popular level; third, I suggest ways of replicating this approach within our circumstances, as a way of overcoming the negative effect of the “conflict” narrative. Bio: Very Rev. Dr Doru Costache is the ISCAST Research Director and an Associate Professor of Theology at the Sydney College of Theology. He coedits Christian Perspectives on Science and Technology. He is a Fellow of ISCAST and of the International Society for Science and Religion. He is a Selby Old Fellow in Religious History of the Orthodox Christian Faith at the University of Sydney Library. He co-chaired the Cosmology group of project “Science and Orthodoxy around the World” (Athens). Author of Humankind and the Cosmos: Early Christian Representations (Brill, 2021) and coauthor of Dreams, Virtue and Divine Knowledge in Early Christian Egypt (Cambridge, 2019). Written version