Peter Rudge

Encounters Between Secular and Sacred Knowledge Peter Rudge

Publisher Marketing: A quick glance at this book will indicate that it deals with many areas of knowledge. There are thirty in all and they are presented in the first chapter in a purely secular form with which most potential readers will be familiar. There is no need for such people to go any further; they may well be content with a standard presentation of the respective subjects. But it is possible for inquiring minds to go further and seek the way in which those subjects are presented in sacred contexts. No doubt many people read the Bible but they may well be surprised when they look into Chapter 2 and see how many of these secular subjects emerge in the text of the Bible. Then there is a further way of perceiving the sacred connections of many of these subjects by looking back into their history and origins, as in Chapter 3. The obvious examples are those of astronomy and Galileo's conflict with the church; in the life sciences, Charles Darwin's evolution was in antagonism with traditional Christian beliefs about creation. Readers are advised to pick and choose whatever topics attract their interest and trace them through the first three chapters. The remainder of the book is an attempt to rethink and rephrase in modern terms the principle of St Thomas Aquinas that "theology is the queen of the sciences."