THE THEOLOGICAL-SCIENTIFIC VISION OF ARTHUR PEACOCKE

Abstract. Arthur Peacocke has made seminal contributions to the interdisciplinary field of Christian theology and natural science. First, this paper presents a summary of his work, including his argument that critical realism provides for theology and science a common philosophical basis preferable to that of reductionistic materialism, vitalistic dualism, or divine interventionism. In specific, Peacocke proposes a form of panentheism in light of cosmology and evolution: God is immanent in and transcendent to the universe, with its open-ended processes characterized by both law and chance. God suffers with the travail of evolution; and Jesus is the normative realization of God's creative involvement with nature—a form of emergence with continuity. This paper then critiques each of these philosophical and theological positions.