Thomas John Hastings

Kagawa Toyohiko was one of the best-known evangelists and social reformers of the twentieth century. Founder of several religious, educational, social welfare, medical, financial, labor, and agricultural cooperatives, he was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature (1947 and 1948), and four times for the Nobel Peace Prize (1954, 1955, 1956, and 1960). Appealing to the masses who had little knowledge of Christianity, Kagawa believed that a positive interpretation of nature was a key missiological issue in Japan. He reasoned that a faith, which is rooted in the "downward movement" of Christ's incarnation, must support the scientific quest and meditate on the purpose or "upward movement" implicit in scientific findings. Through an anti-reductionist methodological pluralism that strives to "sees all things whole," this "scientific mystic" employed a wide range of Japanese and Western cultural resources to assert a complementary role for science and religion in modern society.

The Scientific Mysticism and Art of Kagawa Toyohiko (1888–1960)

Seeing All Things Whole

The Scientific Mysticism and Art of Kagawa Toyohiko (1888-1960)

Knut-Willy Sæther

Why is epistemic fallibilism a viable topic for Christian thought and cultural engagement today? Religious fundamentalists and scientific positivists tend to deal with reality in terms of “knockdown” arguments, and such binary approaches to lived reality have helped to underwrite the belligerence and polarization that mark this age of the social media echo chamber. For those who want to take both religion and science seriously, epistemic fallibilism offers a possible moderating stance that claims neither too much nor too little for either endeavor, nor forces a decision for one side over and against the other. This book uses this epistemological approach to fallibilism as a positive resource for conversations that arise at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and religion. The essays explore a range of openings into the interstices of these often siloed fields, with the aim of overcoming some of the impasses separating diverse ways of knowing.

Thomas John Hastings

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