No God, No Science

No God, No Science: Theology, Cosmology, Biology presents a work of philosophical theology that retrieves the Christian doctrine of creation from the distortions imposed upon it by positivist science and the Darwinian tradition of evolutionary biology.

• Argues that the doctrine of creation is integral to the intelligibility of the world
• Brings the metaphysics of the Christian doctrine of creation to bear on the nature of science
• Offers a provocative analysis of the theoretical and historical relationship between theology, metaphysics, and science
• Presents an original critique and interpretation of the philosophical meaning of Darwinian biology

Preface viii

Acknowledgments xi

Abbreviations xii

Primary Sources and Translations xvi

Introduction 1

Part I In the Beginning 7

1 Discourse on Method 9

2 A Brief History of the Cosmos 49

Part II The Eclipse of the Universe 105

3 The Scientific and Theological Revolution 107

4 Unnatural “Theology” 150

5 Darwin the Theologian 186

6 The Mystery of the Missing Organism 250

Part III Creation Without Creationism 297

7 Deus Creator Omnium 299

8 What the World Is 334

9 Saving the Appearances 375

Epilogue: Evolution of the Last Men 416

Index 422

�Space does not allow me to parse in fine detail the massive erudition that Hanby has brought to bear on this topic or the very precise and exhaustive manner in which he details his metaphysical and theological case.� (Modern Theology, 27 April 2015)

�You can know "what" without knowing "how", but you can't know "how" without knowing "what" - my short summary of this wonderful book.� (Every Good Path, 27 July 2014)

�Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty.� (Choice, 1 December 2013)

Michael Hanby is Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy of Science at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Studies at the Catholic University of America. His previous published works include Augustine and Modernity and numerous journal articles. He has taught previously at Baylor University and Villanova University.

Are creation and evolution mutually exclusive terms? Or is there instead a deep relationship between science, metaphysics, and theology that can help shed light into mankind’s quest for the ultimate truth? No God, No Science: Theology, Cosmology, Biology presents a comprehensive work of philosophical theology whose overarching aim is to retrieve the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo from the distortions imposed upon it by positivist science and the Darwinian tradition of evolutionary biology.

Noted scholar Michael Hanby cogently argues that the Christian doctrine of creation is actually essential to the intelligibility of the world and that the universe itself is a fundamentally metaphysical and theological concept. Metaphysics and theology, he reasons, are not options in the realm of science, and the intractable problems of Darwinian biology are actually the result of its faulty metaphysical and theological foundations. Putting forth a new understanding of the relationship between theology and science and an original and thought-provoking critical reassessment of Darwinian biology, No God, No Science changes the terms of the debate between Darwinism and theology and offers startling new insights into the potential for science and religion to coexist and flourish in the modern world.

“A truce is sometimes called between science and theology, by thinkers on both sides. Michael Hanby, however, shows a way forward more profitable than truce, found in the common ground between theology and science that is metaphysics. Here is theology offering its most to the discussion by being most theological. For decades we have heard that science can lend clarity to theology. With No God, No Science, we have the metaphysical fluency of theology helping science be better science.”—Andrew Davison, Westcott House and the University of Cambridge

“In an era in which it is widely assumed, both popularly and among many professional scientists and philosophers, that the arrival of the Darwinian pronounces the final ‘it is finished’ upon every metaphysical account of reality, theology often appears increasingly pressured by the need to defend its existence against this verdict at the court of scientific rationality. Michael Hanby’s eagerly-anticipated and monumental new book radically inverts this standard order with a bold and simple thesis: without God, there is no science; that no scientific account of the world can justify itself apart from God, without whom there is no ‘world’. A work of stunning erudition and insight that is not only a devastating critique of scientific and theological un-seriousness but a constructive argument for what difference this metaphysical vision makes to the way we live in the world. A profound – and profoundly human – book.”—Peter M. Candler Jr., Baylor University