Thoughts on "Explanation from Physics to Theology: An Essay in Rationality and Religion" by Philip Clayton [Yale University Press: 1989. ix + 230 pages]
What are the rules by which specialists in natural sciences such as physics, chemistry and biology properly distinguish truth from error? What procedural guidelines appropriately govern the work of specialists in social sciences such as psychology, sociology and anthropology? Do specialists in philosophy and theology have trustworthy rules for their work too? If not, why not? If so, in what ways are these norms similar to, and in what ways are they different from, the canons that we rightly expect natural and social scientists to follow? Because it responds to these questions with comprehensiveness, precision and clarity, and because it is one of the first publications by a younger theologian whose influence is growing, this book is worth studying today even though it was first published more than a dozen years ago. Philip Clayton, who was born in 1956, earned degrees from Westmont College and Fuller Theological Seminary before studying the history of philosophy and theology for t...