Eric Priest - Reason and Wonder: Why Science and Faith Need Each Other

Eric Priest was appointed a lecturer (1968) and professor (1983) at St Andrews University, where he founded an internationally renowned research group on solar theory. His research involves modelling the subtle interaction between the plasma atmosphere of the Sun and its magnetic field, responsible for much dynamic behaviour in the universe.

He sits on the Doctrine Committee of the Scottish Episcopal Church and is on the Board of Trustees of the John Templeton Foundation. Since 2007 he has helped organize a series of popular James Gregory public lectures on science and religion in St Andrews.

Honours include being elected a Member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters (1994) and a Fellow of the Royal Society (2002). In 2002 he was awarded the Hale Prize of the American Astronomical Society and in 2009 the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 2015 St Andrews University awarded him an honorary DSc.

He has edited 15 books, and written three research monographs and 460 journal papers. Hobbies include singing, playing bridge, climbing hills, keeping fit and enjoying time with his family (most recently twin granddaughters).

First published in Great Britain in 2016

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ISBN 9780281075249

eBook ISBN 9780281075256

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Contents

Mark Harris is Senior Lecturer in Science and Religion at the University of Edinburgh. His first academic career was in physics, but after studying theology as preparation for ordained ministry, he became enthralled with biblical studies. After several years in chaplaincy and cathedral ministry he now combines his interests by running Edinburghs masters programme in science and religion. He is interested in the ways that modern science has affected biblical interpretation, especially in understandings of creation and of miracle. He is the author of The Nature of Creation: Examining the Bible and Science (Acumen/Routledge, 2013).

Kenneth R. Miller is Professor of Biology at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. A cell biologist, he is the co-author of numerous biology textbooks widely used in US schools. He is also the author of the popular book Finding Darwins God: A Scientists Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution (HarperCollins, 1999). In 2014 he was presented with the Laetare Medal by Notre Dame University, an award described as the the oldest and most prestigious honour given to American Catholics.

Michael J. Murray oversees the programme departments of the John Templeton Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, he was the Arthur and Katherine Shadek Humanities Professor of Philosophy at Franklin and Marshall College. Dr Murray received his MA and PhD from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions (with Eleonore Stump) (Blackwell, 1999), Reason for the Hope Within (Eerdmans, 1998), An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (with Michael Rea) (Cambridge University Press, 2008), Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering (Oxford University Press, 2011), The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion (with Jeffrey Schloss) (Oxford University Press, 2011), Divine Evil? The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible (with Michael Rea and Michael Bergmann) (Oxford University Press, 2013) and Dissertation on Predestination and Election (Yale University Press, 2016).

David G. Myers is Professor of Psychology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. His scientific writings, supported by National Science Foundation grants and fellowships, have appeared in three dozen academic periodicals. He has also digested psychological research for the public through articles in four dozen magazines and 17 books, including general interest books and textbooks for introductory and social psychology.

Eric Priest is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at St Andrews University. A Fellow of the Royal Society, his research concerns the plasma physics of the dynamical behaviour of the Suns atmosphere. This includes mechanisms for heating the Suns corona to 1 million degrees centigrade and the nature of solar flares and huge eruptions that may interact with the Earths environment. He has helped organize a series of James Gregory public lectures on science and religion in St Andrews since 2007. He is on the Advisory Board of the Faraday Institute and the Board of Trustees of the John Templeton Foundation.

Pauline Rudd is Research Professor of Glycobiology at University College, Dublin, and at the National Institute for BioProcessing Research and Training (NIBRT) in Ireland. She is also an Associate of the Anglican Community of St Mary the Virgin in Wantage, Oxfordshire. Her GlycoScience team sets out to define pathways involved in disease processes and to ensure the safety and efficacy of biotherapeutic drugs for cancer and autoimmune disorders. She has developed strategies for analysing glycans and discovering clinical markers for the diagnosis and treatment of cancers. Professor Rudd is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. She received a Waters Centre of Innovation Award in 2012 and an Honorary Doctorate at the University of Gothenburg in 2014. Before moving her group to Dublin in 2006, she was Reader in Glycobiology at Oxford University.