The Rev. Dr. Fred Burham, historian of science and founding leader of the ST&F Network, recently retired as the third director of Trinity Institute (see article in the last issue of this Newsletter, -Issue 2-2, Sts Peter and Paul-). Every year, the Trinity Institute National Conference has identified the leading edges of contemporary theology, which necessarily include the influences of science and technology. In a retrospective of the twenty National Conferences he put together, he says that he recognizes a persistent theme: working to piece together a postmodern puzzle.
"As historians look back at the 20th century, I believe that they will recognize one of the great intellectual shifts in human history, comparable to the development of ancient Greek philosophy, the emergence of the medieval synthesis, the birth of the Renaissance, and the rise of modern science. In other words, the 20th century was an era when old and established ways of knowing and thinking became flawed and the human community struggled to find alternative ways of knowing that were both intellectually sound and psychologically secure.
"When the twentieth century opened, we still lived happily and securely in the safe house of Enlightenment reason and modern science," he writes. "God had built for us a perfectly harmonized, clockwork world.... Slowly but surely, however, the scientific community that had built this rational kingdom began to discover cracks in its walls," and the search for additional pieces to the puzzle resumed, using new techniques.
Read the entire essays in the archives of Trinity News, "Postmodern Puzzlers".
