Abstract

Through much of Christian history, visual art has been used to enable people to connect with God and the Christian story. Might the images produced by science enable the same experience? Popular science presentations in the media employ images to wow their audiences, provoking moments of wonder, a near universal human experience. But can such images convey meaning in the same way artists creatively communicate their own view of the world and the divine artist behind it all? Combining insights from the thirteenth century Franciscan theologian Bonaventure regrading marks of God’s power, creativity, and love in creation with sociologist Peter Berger’s suggestion that humanities of experience of wonder, play and seeking of order are signs of transcendence behind the everyday world, a spiritual viewing of scientific imagery is explored. Images commonly found in popular science media will be discussed and it will be suggested that exploring the dialogue of science and faith through visual media provides new ways of spiritually engaging a wider audience in both church and society through science.

About the Speaker

David Gregory has a background in Physics and after a PhD in thunderstorm modelling at Imperial College worked at the Met Office and European Weather Centre developing weather and climate models. He has been a Baptist minister for the past 20 years, and recently served as Baptist Union President (2018-19) sharing the theme “Divine Windows : Glimpses of God through Life, the Universe and Everything”. He continues to engage with science and speaks on the interface of science and faith to churches, community groups and schools. He is convenor of the Baptist Union Environmental Network (BUEN) and chair of The John Ray Initiative, an environmental Christian education charity. He also co-ordinates the “Messy Church Does Science” project and the soon to be published “MESS-AI Church” which uses Lego robots to explore issues around the science and theology of Artificial Intelligence in popular way. He is about to complete a master’s in applied theology at Oxford University exploring the dialogue of science, theology, and spirituality.

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