Guest editors: Joanna Leidenhag and Benedikt Göcke
Analytic theology and Science-Engaged Theology are two of the most exciting movements within theology in recent years. Both are interdisciplinary endeavours that seek to use the tools and insights from others sub-disciplines (areas of analytic philosophy and the natural sciences, respectively) in the service of theology. Analytic theology and science-engaged theology both maintain the primacy and integrity of the theological task, whilst simultaneously inviting other disciplines to enrich theological reflection, criticism, and declaration.
What these recent trends show is that theologians no longer need to (if they ever did) fear forms of rationalism or empiricism that, in previous generations, have been used to exclude theological discourse from the public square or academic University. It is clearly the case that theologians have long appealed to reason and experience as sources for theological reflection and correction. But in analytic theology and science-engaged theology, we can see that theologians can also use (as well as critique) the highly constrained, specialised, and systematised forms of reasoning and evidencing that is found in analytic philosophy and the natural sciences. Analytic theology and science-engaged theology are in this sense complementary movements that signal that theology has now reached a kind of quiet confidence that does not need to fight, flee or submit to other forms of inquiry.
Whilst analytic theology and science-engaged theology have developed separately, they substantially overlap on the question of how theology can best engage other disciplines. Thus, there is scope for a further alliance of these movements in the form of analytic science-engaged theology. Such an analytic science-engaged theology would use the tools of both analytic philosophy and some specific area of the natural sciences within their theology. We are inviting papers that exemplify this kind of fine grained, interdisciplinary, constructive theological work. We are not primarily looking for papers that discuss the possibility or nature of analytic science-engaged theology, but for papers that exemplify this sub-field by exploring a theological question using both scientific and analytic resources. \
We welcome all forms of analytic science-engaged theology; in particular, we are very interested in papers that engage a theological tradition outside of mainstream Christianity, or which prioritize the voices of marginalized groups.”
Deadline for submissions: October 1st, 2021
Full papers should be submitted via our website: https://ojs.uclouvain.be/index.php/theologica/index. In order to contribute equally to scientific international discussions held in several languages, articles written in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish are accepted. Visit the TheoLogica homepage for a description of the journal and instructions to authors.
PDF version of this CFP can be found here.
Yours sincerely,
Joanna Leidenhag and Benedikt Göcke