The Best Books On the Line Between Religion and Science
Over the decades and centuries, plenty of writers have sought to grapple with the big questions of human existence. At bookstores you’ll find the shelves on science and religious books abundant and discreet. Less common are the books that exist in the overlap of the two subjects.
But there’s an increasing number of works including the below that examine the porousness between the science/religion divide, that use one to increase our knowledge of the other, or take an unorthodox approach to the big questions surrounding humanity’s place in the world.
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Add to BookshelfFinding God in the Waves
by Mike McHargue
The titles of the two podcasts hosted by writer Mike McHargue give a sense of the breadth of his areas of concern: Ask Science Mike and The Liturgists Podcast. His writing focuses on finding a way to reconcile religious belief and an appreciation for science; in this book, he chronicles how, through an interest in neuroscience, he ended up reconnecting to his own Christianity.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Man Who Wasn’t There
by Anil Ananthaswamy
Questions of the nature of the self are essential to both science and religion. Consider the idea of the soul, in all of its permutations; consider the way that recent scientific advances have led to an increased understanding of personality, memory, and our own capacity for change. In this book, Anil Ananthaswamy examines what science can teach us about the way we envision the self — and, therefore, what that tells us about our most essential components.
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$24.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Making Sense of God
by Timothy Keller
Timothy Keller is the author of multiple books on religion and theology, and is the pastor of New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church. This is not the first of his books to address questions of belief and skepticism — 2009’s The Reason of God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism also wrestled with these issues. In this new book, he opts to engage directly with the concept of skepticism, making his own case for the necessity of faith.
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Getting Religion
by Kenneth L. Woodward
The role of religion in public life and politics has changed dramatically since the mid-20th century. And the way that religion and faith inform numerous political and societal debates can have an impact on one’s daily life, regardless of your own personal religious beliefs. Woodward, who was the religion editor of Newsweek from 1964 to 2002, has had an ideal perspective from which to observe these societal changes, and documents them extensively in this new book.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
