PANEL: REIMAGINING GOD IN A COMPLEX WORLD: TOWARDS A DYNAMIC THEOLOGY FOR SOCIAL-CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION
09/07/2025 15:15 - 17:30
HALL: Lecture Hall 27

Proponent: Butler R., Hammer E.B., Juarrero A.

Chair: Wiese T.

Speaker: Butler R., Wiese T.

This interdisciplinary panel inclusive of scientists, philosophers, and theologians explore how the turn towards complex dynamical systems in the various fields of science can inform and transform theological responses to pressing social-cultural questions in Europe and beyond. As European societies experience progressive secularization alongside religious pluralism, traditional Christian narratives of God often struggle to address the contemporary issues of individualization, autonomy, ecological crisis, and human suffering. Through interdisciplinary dialogue, this panel critiques the reductionistic tendencies of classical science and systematic theology, paralleling shift in the sciences from deterministic framework to models emphasizing emergence, complexity and interconnectivity. This panel explores a theological re-envisioning of God using the science of complexity to describe this complex evolving world.

964.1
   
THE PROBLEM OF REDUCTIONISM IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

Butler R. *

AdventHealth University ~ Winter Park ~ United States of America
964.2
   
CAUSALITY OF THE PERCEIVED GOOD

Wiese T. *

University of St. Andrews ~ St Andrews ~ United Kingdom