Minding God (Theology and the Sciences)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 268 pages
• Published by: Augsburg Fortress Publishers November 1, 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0800634985
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0800634988
• Book Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 15.7 ounces

Product Description
Does it make sense to speak of the "mind of God"? Are humans unique? Do we have souls? Our growing explorations of the cognitive sciences pose significant challenges to and opportunities for theological reflection. Gregory Peterson introduces these sciences: neuroscience, artificial intelligence, animal cognition, linguistics, and psychology—that specifically contribute to the new picture and their philosophical underpinnings. He shows its implications for rethinking longstanding Western assumptions about the unity of the self, the nature of consciousness, free will, inherited sin, and religious experience. Such findings also illumine our understanding of God’s own mind, the God-world relationship, new notions of divine design, and the implications of a universe of evolving minds.

Peterson is gifted at explaining scientific concepts and drawing their implications for religious belief and theology. His work demonstrates how new work in cognitive sciences upends and reconfigures many popular assumptions about human uniqueness, mind-body relationship, and how we speak of divine and human intelligence.

About The Author
Gregory R. Peterson is Associate Professor of Religion at Thiel College, Greenville, Pennsylvania.

Reader Reviews
I picked up this book on the strength of it's back-cover claims to blast religious notions of unity, selfhood, etc, but essentially this is an attempt to redefine such notions in the light of science. Peterson's attempts to hide his personal religious tendencies are not disguised. This might please a non-scientific Christian looking for some magic ammunition against scientific non-beleivers, but from an academic view the book only skims the surface of the topics it treats, as the author's primary purpose is to use quack-science to support his theist view.