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Wesley J. Wildman, Science and Religious Anthropology: A Spiritually Evocative Naturalist Interpretation of Human Life (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 294 pp., £60.00 (ISBN 9780754665922).

Wesley J. Wildman, Science and Religious Anthropology: A Spiritually Evocative Naturalist... Can you have religion without God? Wesley Wildman thinks so. Indeed, he argues that a “spiritually evocative yet thoroughly naturalist interpretation of human life” (xv) is the most adequate way of understanding human experience. And, in Science and Religious Anthropology , Wildman sets out to defend that provocative thesis. Along the way, he offers an interesting book that will be helpful for anyone seeking to understand how a naturalist can be religious and/or some of the implications of modern science for religious anthropologies. For Wildman, ‘religious naturalism’ refers to the idea that human persons are fundamentally religious beings, and, consequently, that there is some “ultimate reality” in the universe. But, whatever this ultimate reality might be—an issue on which he remains agnostic, appealing for support to various apophatic traditions—its “determinate features” must “derive from and emerge in relation to the world” (23). Thus, he affirms ‘religion’ without supernaturalism. But, although religious naturalism lies at the heart of the book, Wildman spends relatively little time explaining and defending the concept, something he apparently does in the forthcoming Science and Ultimate Reality . Instead, the real focus of this book is on Wildman’s argument that religious naturalism has greater explanatory http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Reformed Theology Brill

Wesley J. Wildman, Science and Religious Anthropology: A Spiritually Evocative Naturalist Interpretation of Human Life (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 294 pp., £60.00 (ISBN 9780754665922).

Journal of Reformed Theology , Volume 6 (3): 313 – Jan 1, 2012

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Book Reviews
ISSN
1872-5163
eISSN
1569-7312
DOI
10.1163/15697312-12341251
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Can you have religion without God? Wesley Wildman thinks so. Indeed, he argues that a “spiritually evocative yet thoroughly naturalist interpretation of human life” (xv) is the most adequate way of understanding human experience. And, in Science and Religious Anthropology , Wildman sets out to defend that provocative thesis. Along the way, he offers an interesting book that will be helpful for anyone seeking to understand how a naturalist can be religious and/or some of the implications of modern science for religious anthropologies. For Wildman, ‘religious naturalism’ refers to the idea that human persons are fundamentally religious beings, and, consequently, that there is some “ultimate reality” in the universe. But, whatever this ultimate reality might be—an issue on which he remains agnostic, appealing for support to various apophatic traditions—its “determinate features” must “derive from and emerge in relation to the world” (23). Thus, he affirms ‘religion’ without supernaturalism. But, although religious naturalism lies at the heart of the book, Wildman spends relatively little time explaining and defending the concept, something he apparently does in the forthcoming Science and Ultimate Reality . Instead, the real focus of this book is on Wildman’s argument that religious naturalism has greater explanatory

Journal

Journal of Reformed TheologyBrill

Published: Jan 1, 2012

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