Creation's Persistent Voice: Critiquing the Secondary Status
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Abstract
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Christianity struggles with the concept that nature/creation is truly revelatory of God, and
not merely confirmatory of theological conclusions derived from special revelation or deduced from rational reflection. The result is a stilted and narrow conversation between theology and the natural sciences, with the contribution of creation to knowledge of God being limited to certain well-worn paths. If theology is willing to hold a full-fledged conversation with the natural sciences, it may just find that new metaphors and conceptions of God arise that illuminate our understanding of God in ways that scripture alone cannot. Such conversations must be characterized (on both sides) as serious and tentative, with conclusions never considered to be final, but always open to further conversation as new paradigms emerge.