Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims at surveying and discussing some of the principal ways in which science has been said to challenge religion – recognizing that religion and science have also been regarded as being in other relations to one another. It describes a debate which took place in the years following the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. The book describes the background to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's attempt to bring together theories on the evolution of life and Christian theology. It argues that 'creation' is a doctrine of religion based on revelation, not a conclusion of science, and that one should not therefore be overly optimistic about the 'Big Bang' theory supporting the religious doctrine of a creation in time. The book also examines the phenomenon of reports of experience of contact with the divine.